Just letting everyone know that I tested the new patch to see if any new changes such as the - “Drop Pocket option at Rucks for kicking” on my Saved Coach Career. It worked so I guess that proves that patch updates will also include your saved coach career and competitions.
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Great update - again making it more playable again. Like the addition of dropping into the pocket, although doesn’t work consistently. Most of the time my 10 is in a ruck so it’s my flanker who kicks the ball away. This AI needs improved - if forwards are in pod of 3, then the 2 forwards not carrying ball should be in the ruck - not the 10. Backs would only realistically hit a ruck if it was in the wide channels after line break etc, but right now my 10 seems to keep getting stuck going ruck to ruck. Forwards should be 1-3-3-1 or 4-4 formation in attack to keep it simple.
Still issues with passing, the ball fizzes away from a winger who’s in space and straight into touch. Also can’t seem to hit a short pass like a shoulder ball/short tip pass. Add in different passing animations, example - longer passes will be spin passes and shorter passes will be more like tips/pops.
You NEED to add in dummy passes. Start pass with left or right trigger button and then cancel it by pressing the opposite to perform a dummy, something simple like that. I think rugby 08 had this and it’s a huge part of attacking rugby in reality.
Scrums - they are really hard, and even when I manage to hit all of the gauges at precise time, the scrum still collapses and it’s hard to tell when the scrum is over as ref says use it but the dial keeps moving to push trigger buttons.
Fends, bumps and handoffs don’t work on side view camera. Or they work when attacking one way but not the other, so at half time they stop working when you use the right analogue and can only side step. I’ve still yet to do a bump yet on side view, but can do this easily on end to end. So this needs fixed so it’s consistent on all camera angles and in both halves of the game.
Passing off of a lineout - normally teams run strike plays and right now the pass from lineout to the back line is really poor.
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Dummy passes are in there, exactly as u said, hold one pass button, and then tap the opposite one 
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@Cheiftain92 That is a great post. 100% agree with all of that!!! (Well except for dummies, I think they’re in there). It exactly reflects most of the issues I’ve had myself. I’m glad someone else is getting the same kind of ruck issues with backs, totally agree about 10 and even when going to quite wide channels, it’s rare for a 10 to be out there anyway to even go into those! If 10 isn’t available for pocket, 12 should scramble there and if they’re both in a ruck then the game has to be reprogrammed to change that!!!
The winger passing issue I get more on side cam than when I tested end on, so pretty much the same as for you.
Scrums seem like they aren’t quite right to me either. I can never time that first hit right even in green, I always time the hook right and then get the rest right to a collapsed scrum a lot of the time! I see you have to push square to get it out, but those meters keep on going! I’d like an option to cut down the slow formation of the scrum after the first viewing too, it slows down the game!
Your comments on Fends, bumps and handoffs on side cam need no more input from me, absolutely correct!
Passes off lineouts? Again you nailed it, they need a better slightly deeper formation and they also need the ability for us to get the first pass off the lineout away much snappier. Sometimes it lags along with him getting swamped by defenders.
Here’s hoping they look into those issues sometime soon. There’s gradually more an more good creeping into the game and yes, definitely thankful for that, but a few more fixes and some improved structure and it could be awesome.
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Hey enjoying the regular updates/patches. Thanks for all your hard work. Really appreciate you taking on the feedback and trying to implement it in the game. There’s still a lot of areas that require a lot of work but hopefully if you prioritise and address these points I’m sure you will have an amazing product.
Positives
-passing has improved a lot as well as support player lines but still need a lot of work
-being able to put your 10 into the pocket to kick for touch or drop goal has been a massive positive
-regular updates to squads and selection has been awesome being up to date.
Areas for improvement
-Still needs to be correct positioning, structure, shape, tactics on attack. At the moment it’s a bit of a free for all with players standing all over the place with no plan, actual purpose, structure or shape. What is the point in having positions if they aren’t going to be utilised properly to how they are in rugby union. At the moment there is no difference between forwards and backs except for the 9.
Forwards are standing all over the place and you have your 10 either hitting rucks, standing out the back or on the blind side. It would be like creating a football game and having your strikers back where the defenders are and having your midfielder being the goal keeper. There needs to be structure, purpose and intent. 10 needs to be heavily involved in the attack, like the point guard in basketball bringing the ball up court then directing play, creating opportunities for other players and feeding them the ball.
The 10 needs to be feeding the forwards pods and outside backs unless you have a pod running off 9 with the potential tip pass out the back to the 10.
10 outside 9 as the first receiver, 12 outside him then 13 etc. The 10 shouldn’t be hitting more rucks then the tight forwards. Then when the 10 is in the ruck the 12 or 15 becomes the first receiver. Would be cool to have a button on the keypad where you can control your fullback joining the line or dropping back to cover.
You could use tactics like 1-3-3-1 or 2-4-2 as other people have mentioned. If you aren’t sure what they are I would recommend looking it up on YouTube, there are some great explanations on there. Otherwise would be good to atleast at the bare minimum be able to control your pods and direct whether you have them running off 9 or 10 or 12 with the option to tip the ball out to another playmaker out the back, pretty much the 1-3-3-1 shape. But otherwise your 10 should always be getting the ball from 9 with the rest of the backline outside him.
Has been awesome to see the passing improvements, however they are still too floaty/lobby and the ball doesn’t even rotate properly when it is passed. Would seriously recommend having the option to throw a short ball or a long ball. With the long ball the ball needs to be rotating, with a short ball it doesn’t, pretty much a rugby league pass.
Support runners have improved a lot as well, but they are still either mainly running lateral or running back in towards the ruck. They need to be running straight and at gaps, and keeping up with the ball carrier, as if you break the line the support players are still too deep. Would be awesome if you implemented proper running lines with those coloured lines showing you which line your supporting players are running so as the playmaker you know what option you want to hit. Would be awesome to be able to control your attack line width and depth.
Rucks/breakdown - There needs to be a jackel over the ball after a tackle is made. There needs to be a bit of urgency and quick responsiveness from the tackler, so once you’ve made a tackle you can quickly release then go for the ball, it is too delayed at the moment that you can’t even have a good crack at stealing the ball.
Scrums - I think the scrums are a bit overcomplicated at the moment, just being able to press x to feed the ball in and tap square to push would work fine. With having the option of your number 8 running off the back of the scrum then can either pass to 9 or take the ball into contact.
Cutscenes - Would allow the option to skip cutscenes as at the moment when the ball goes into touch you always have the prop or hooker chewing off the ref or touch judges ear and it gets quite repetitive and taxing.
Sorry not trying to be negative, trying to be constructive and give you good feedback as I believe if you prioritise fixing these areas you will have an amazing game. Thanks for all your efforts!
Cheers!
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Is anyone aware if a set piece system is being implemented at some point?
2 Likes
Im planning to buy the game, is the game worth the money? I heard the game is somehow unplayable
It will vary depending on who you talk to, but if you are:
A massive rugby gaming fan and can handle a game with some deficiencies that are being worked on then a very definite Yes.
A moderate fan of rugby gaming, but you’ve got the patience to wait 2-3 more weeks (at the current rate) for it to become pretty good fun, then Yes if you’ve got money you want to spend on a game.
If you’re someone who wants the full finished article and a top quality rugby game, then possibly hold off and see how development of patches goes over the next couple of weeks.
The game is not really unplayable, it felt near to that on release in my opinion, but was never unplayable, just buggy and broken in small but important areas. I would say a lot of bugginess is gone and the broken features seem to all work much better (but have a good amount of room for improvement - passing and rucks for example).
Hope it helps you decide.
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Alot of people will tell you different. Is there room for improvement? Yes absolutely, and i can tell you honestly that BIGANT is really listening to the community. If you are a pure rugby fan get the game bro.
In my opinion this game has the potential to be the best rugby game to date
Tip for scrums. On the first trigger press wait until the bar hits the end then press. If you try and press in the green it doesn’t work, the timing is later on the first press than you would assume.
I struggled with this for ages then fluked it and now I win every scrum (which is another problem I guess!).
I’m enjoying the game. Still lots to work on, but thanks Big Ant for keeping on it.
I use side cam as it’s little more challenging and you can appreciate the detail in contact and line breaks a bit more. I’ve started to score some pretty decent tries too so I’d encourage folk to persevere and once you get to grips with the systems you can have some fun.
Thanks for tip on the dummy pass, I didn’t know that one! Will be trying later.
Bump off and hands off not working for me. I play with side camera. Have you got the same problem ?
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Very, very rare that they work on side cam. End on, no problem.
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Yes, same.
I tend to get one half where hand off works.
BUT the directions of the right stick push shifts to the equivalent of the direction you’re playing.
So when end on, down on the R stick is fend. When playing left to right, LEFT on the R stick is fend. There is some logic (?) aligned to the direction to are running / playing, fend seems to be pushing R stick away from the end you’re attacking. But only in one half on side cam.
I see the dodgy quirks as poor refereeing - just like the real thing for an England fan! 
So much to discover 
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Just had a pretty infuriating three games back to back. Started an 8 team custom competition. Playing side cam on easy as the Highlanders against some of the other super rugby sides.
Could barely win any rucks and on the few occasions where I did they almost always won them straight back.
I had occasions of players locked in for a targeted pass, and then the ball just going whizzing past them into touch.
I had players standing completely still when they could’ve been creating an overlap.
I had wingers beginning to maneuver outside my centre and then just stop directly behind him.
I had one of my opposition players knock the ball on, pick it back up and then turn 90 degrees and run directly for the sideline to bring up the end of a half!
I couldn’t really do anything to break the line, the whole “on side cam none of the skills work” thing was at its best.
On top of all that the opposition in each game could hold on to the ball for phase after phase after phase after phase. You’d think the game might give me some sort of chance at a turnover after 25 phases, but no the game wanted a try and it would not let up until the opposition scored a try! There needs to be some kind of programming that reflects the situations in real life where sides can hang on to the ball for 10 -15 phases yeah, but as it goes on past 6-7 phases the chance of a turnover increases!
It was maddening and the worst experience I’ve had with the game yet. I really hope somebody from big ant can come on to the forum here and let us know that side cam is being looked at and balanced better for timing of skills (including correct direction of use), height and depth of camera angle and seemingly having its own bugs!
I have experienced the “AI is going to score and nothing you can do about it” too. I had it with an endless scrum cycle and just had to let them score and love on. Very frustrating.
Hopefully BA can get this sorted.
Have experienced this in other sports games in the past. Rugby Challenge used to do this from time to time. And I remember in an early version of Pro Evo soccer this could happen too. If any of you are old enough to remember Sensible World of Soccer (the mightiest football game of f all time), the computer (it wasn’t called AI in the 90s) would do a weird little wiggle with their player then belt the ball in from pretty much anywhere. Nothing you could do about it, just a sense of impending doom as you watched your keeper flail in vain as the 40 yard screamer flew into the top corner. Good times 
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The ruck system needs to change because in rugby, counter rucks doesn’t happen often but in the game there is a counter ruck at every second ruck and I feel like there is no animation or implementation for stealing a ball or a penalty for holding on.
The game speed is too fast as well we need to feel the collisions and player stats should also feel like it has an impact. Certain players should make metres with carries not just get tackled back.
The running animation is also not looking good it feels like every players legs get shortened.
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Yes, just sidestepping works for me on side cam!
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CPU teams Always take a Scrum on Penalties now that deffo needs changing , itend not to compete when its their put in just to balance it out, but loving the improvements in the game So fair play to big Ant on the Updates
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Is there going to be any more official stadiums added?
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Yes, this, to a certain extent. The last two Ruby games do have a fairly good systems in place for both rucks, mauls, and scrums. The key is not to neglect these aspects of gameplay to cater to the casual gamer, if you want to do this do an arcade mode. Were rucks, scrums, and lineouts are simplified or automated. For hardcore rugby fans we want a deep ruck, scrum, and lineout system.
The Jackal on Rugby Challenge 3/4 is almost perfect, it has the perfect mix of the Jackal/steal and the offensive player being able to hold on with chance of holding on penalty, and the defense could be called for hands in the ruck, a simple yet deep system could be, for binding there could be two buttons one for forwards and one for backs, and depending on each individual ruck, you either bind , forward, forward, or maybe if it is out wide and will take to long for the forward to support you press a button for the back to bind because he is closer followed up by bind forward or back depending on situation. So any given ruck the button presses can be different depending of the proximity of forwards and backs. The current system is working ok, although I think the last patch made them a little too easy to turn over, acceptable but not as good as steam version V1.02588 and xbox V1.02491, the amount of turnovers on those versions it seemed they were more simulation, (maybe a tad more then real life rugby turnovers, but ok to translate into a video game) ,
So key points now
- Add ability to add up to 5 to the ruck
- Fix the Y contest one on one tackle isolation where you can standup or stay standing and jackal the ball, like RC3/4 Jackle system, and like the tutorial instructs.
- Add ruck penalties for the offense holding on in the ruck, and defense for hands in ruck.
- Add more animation to the rucking system, 1 player stealing the ball should not continue into bulldozen 2-3 offensive rucking players animation. The timing of when it can happen and end result is good at the moment, but the correct animation should be in place. Which is either pick up the ball and steal, or attempt to pick up the ball and the opponent holds on for a penalty. Causing a turnover in any case.
- Increase the smoothness of a back being able to chase his own UP and Under, for the better rated players the trajectory should be higher, so it gives you the opportunity to chase your own kick.
- Add set plays
- have b as regular low waist tackle and Y as higher tackle with each having their own risk/reward. Having the ability to choose high or low tackle gives the defense better choices, which in turn makes it more fun to play defense.
- Reward the well-played scrums, mauls, with more meters being able to be gained, particularly Mauls. This makes mauls and scrums more engaging and fun to play when the possible outcome of a perfect scrum or maul, has some advantages, could be in form of the opponent being called for a penalty in the scrum or maul, giving your team an advantage or allow for more meters to be gain for the perfect maul.
- Sliders, Sliders, Sliders, so we can customize the game to play, how we like to play. Arcade vs Simulation
Look forward to more and more improvements
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