Rugby 25 Megathread

Rugby 25
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So finally got a few games of the new patch.
My expectations were incredibly low, and it’s still managed to disappoint me.

No two ways about it, this is an absolute disgrace. Beyond bad.

What was the point in early access? Did any of the regular, detailed and accurate feedback get taken into account?

  • rucks remain spectacularly slow, with little to no improvement since ea1. The most criticised aspect of the game over the last 9 or so months hasn’t been touched. No ruck penalties, the same 3 or so animations, no jackaling, neck rolls, side entry, etc.
  • attacking flow is non existent players still line up with no rhyme or reason players don’t run good lines, no set plays, no real tactics, why can’t I put the fly half in the pocket? Why can’t I adjust line width and depth?
  • defense is untouched mostly those ‘placeholder’ rugby league tackles are still widespread
  • ai remains terrible 1 up runner goes into contact, and repeat over and over and over.
  • can’t comment on career mode, I’m not touching this game again.

I could keep going for paragraph after paragraph, but itd be a waste of time I’ve done that already and it’s made no difference

I assume this was pushed out by Nacon. They should be ashamed of themselves I’d love to think that some of this feedback would reach them, but I know it won’t.

I doubt I’ll be able to get a refund from steam as I put about 20 hours into early access but I will definitely try.

Adios rugby 25, it’s been a disaster from start to finish

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When’s this roadmap coming…?
Really think it would help BA and the press around the game

Also, I really hope that there’s the ability to fix ratings for players. Without sounding arrogant, I know a lot more about Premiership rugby than I would assume everyone at BA, as someone who is a season ticket holder at quins and watches about 3 games a week. Therefore, let me do the ratings that would be most accurate to make it the game I’d like it to be

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Hey there,

Firstly thanks for taking on the challenge of making a new rugby game. The effort towards licensing etc looks really good.

I believe the improvement lies in the gameplay as that is the foundation of the game and without that it doesn’t feel like playing rugby.

There needs to be some structure on attack. Players need to be standing in the correct position otherwise there is no difference between back and forwards. Number 10 needs to be directing play and the first receiver outside 9 from the ruck with 12, 13 etc outside him. You could use the key pad right arrow to call for a pod of 3 forwards running off 9 or left arrow on the keypad to call for a pod running off 10. You could then have an option to press “X” where the ball carrier of the forwards pod can either take the ball into contact or press X and pass the ball out the back to 10 or 12 as tip depending on which forward pod has the ball. But unless if you press the trigger, 9 should be passing to 10, and if 10 is in the ruck or made a tackle then 12 would become the first receiver until 10 is back into position or 15 will come into the line and be the first receiver. There could be a button to have 15 join the backline. If there is space on the blindside then your 15 could join the line with 13 and one of the wingers outside him.

Would also be cool if off kick offs, or after putting up a bomb you could press “X” to have your wingers go up in the air to contest the ball and try win back possession or whoever is in the chase line.

Obviously you could add in set plays/cross kicks etc as you progress but first you need to nail the fundamentals, player positioning, structure/shape, smooth fluid attack. You also need to make sure support players are running lines of the ball carrier and at gaps and keeping up with the ball carrier when they make a break and refine the passing as it looks too floaty and not direct. For these two points I would look at the gameplay of Rugby 08 or even Rugby Challenge 2 and see how they did it. Would be cool if you could control your attacks line speed, depth and width as well.

For Kicking it would be cool if there was an option to put your 10 into the pocket to clear for touch or drop back into position for a drop goal, having a slow motion set up when your 10 receives the ball to kick would work well.

The breakdown and rucking system needs some work. I went 70 minutes without touching the ball.

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After few more games,

Ai- still easy on hardest putting 30+ on teams, Ai doesn’t even pass the ball past the first receiver so it’s it’s just ruck sim,

Mauls doesn’t work player just get tackled,

Tbh non gameplay wise works well.

And people want to know how rucks work pretty simple just spam steal button and you will get your turnovers more don’t stress about add or contest just press the steal button repeatedly

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There needs to be a couple of seconds after the tackle where the player can have a crack at winning the ball, the either win it, milk a penalty or get penalised for being off feet or not releasing the tackler before going for the ball. It’s needs to be fluid though so both teams have a balanced crack at attacking and defending.

I appreciate that rugby is a complicated game and there’s so much depth, rules and interpretations of rules to it but I believe If you worked on these things as a start, get the fundamentals right with structure, flow and shape of your the game. You’ll have a good foundation that you can build on.

Cheers!

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Honest question to the dev team…….

What work have you actually done for the passing? As it has been woefully poor since EA1.

Feels very deflating for this to be the day 1 quality of the gameplay when you have been working on this game for as long as you have.

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Mark this BA !!
Notation are still to bad

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First off congrats on the release. I really do love the amount of content in there of the face scans, teams, stadiums & tournaments.

Unfortunately the gameplay is still miles off and really ruins all the experience.
Playing tackle simulator because the AI does one off runners is not fun for an entire half.

On top of that I had plenty of crashes today, during games, searching the community hub and loading tutorials.

The updates and fixes better come quick and fast.

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Glad I’m not the only one who thought of ashes cricket 13 as a comparison.

Seem to remember Ross having a field day when that got canned back in the day.

How the tables have turned

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Or start giving unreal engine a go seems like even major developers are moving to unreal engine

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I will never understand people who say the game is good or perfect…:melting_face::melting_face::melting_face:

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As usual the truth is somewhere in the middle. Fact is no rugby game has ever looked this good and the devs have (rightly or wrongly) pinned their flag on this phototelemmetry stuff, which would undoubtedly have taken up huge resources.

I am not ultra pessimistic about where the game can go in a few months time if the devs are able to commit to the gameplay. My view is that the foundation is there.

  1. Adding the option to play at greater depth in attack would greatly increase the ability to play wide. You can play wide but it requires miss out passes. I actually think the tight play is brilliant in and around the ruck so greater depth would really open up the options in the backfield.

  2. They do however have to fix the passes being flung out into touch instead of the wing. This is the most annoying thing for me, but I fail to see how it cannot be rectified.

  3. The AI have stopped passing, but they were in previous EA, so there must be some tweaks to bring that back. it would greatly increase the enjoyment of the game.

  4. The rules have to be applied correctly - 50/22s etc. I think this was a time issue as there has never been knock ons or offsides in any EA to date, and it is clearly something that has not been properly tested, but can be with time.

  5. Sorry I can’t see the ruck system changing, although it should be tweaked to favour the defender when you keep driving the opposition back for phase after phase or when you’re really isolated. This again requires tweaks. i shouldnt really have to defend 20 plus phases. I admit the rucking system is too simple but I just can’t see them overhauling it at this stage.

  6. Line outs should be contestable as in previous EA.

  7. Generally speaking I don’t actually have an issue with the passing. run into the space, draw the man, and let them through the hole. I do admit the short pass is lacking, and this is again something that should be worked on.

There is a lot more I can add, but IMO just rectifying the above would make a huge difference in the feel of the game. I’m really hoping the devs can pull through as I am convinced that there is a great product waiting underneath what is clearly still a beta build.

I said what I said before, if you really think the game was going to be remarkably different from EA7, then it was wishful thinking.

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Hi Big Ant, so having now played a few games on PS5 here are my thoughts. Firstly thanks so much for bringing us a new rugby game. While I really want to love it, the gameplay just isn’t there. The game absolutely nails licensing more than any rugby game before and the presentation is solid but once you actually start playing, it feels like an incomplete mess. There’s so much potential here, but right now, the gameplay just doesn’t feel like real rugby.

Firstly rucks are completely off the mark and probably the biggest issue. The way rucks work in Rugby 25 just doesn’t feel right. Forwards exist for a reason, they are the ones contesting and securing rucks. But in this game, it doesn’t feel like you have control over who joins with any three players, whether forwards or backs joining. This just shouldn’t happen. Pressing O to join the ruck should only bind the forwards. There needs to be risk between committing 6-8 forwards to the ruck to win the ball or only adding in 1-2 to better defend. Backs should also not be getting involved in every ruck. A suggestion would be to use X to bind a back line player if a ruck is isolated and you need to stop the opposition getting a turnover.

Moving to forward play, this just feels non existent. There’s no way to play a short pass from a ruck to a forward and drive through the line, which is a key part of rugby. That needs to be a dedicated driving animation carrying momentum forward to gain territory. Also, scrum-halves should be able to call a forward to pick and go from the base of the ruck, which is another huge missing piece and key for when right by the line.

Then there is the structures, as others have mentioned. Attacking structure is all over the place with players out of position, running into each other, and there’s no proper pod setup. Rugby has a clear attacking structure, 10 should be first receiver, 12 should be second receiver with pods set up at different places on the field but that is not happening here. As a result passing feels off. There’s no depth to attacks, and players don’t position themselves well, which leads to a lot of aimless running into tackles rather than structured attacking play. Finally on attack there needs to be some style of set plays. I actually liked the ones in Rugby League Live 4 so can’t understand how something like that hasn’t been implemented

On the other side of the ball defensive lines in this game are a mess as well. In real rugby, the defensive line moves up as a unit, staying connected. Here, you get one random player rushing out of the line while the rest hang back. It completely ruins defensive structure. The speed of the defensive line also feels way too fast at times. There should be an option to adjust your team’s defensive approach whether to use a rush defense, drift defense, or a more balanced setup. Right now, it’s just chaos

Rugby 25 has a solid foundation with its licenses and visuals, but the gameplay needs some serious work. Right now, rucking is broken, jackling is too slow, forward play is non-existent, backline structure is all over the place, and defense feels random. If you could focus on fixing these things, the game could actually be great. But as it stands It’s frustrating to play.

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I have only created an account to say that this game is a complete joke and an absolute cash grab. I’ve bought every Rugby Union game since Rugby 2004 and this must be the worst of all of them. No plays off set piece or breakdown, horrendous passing and not even a semblance of a support line. Attacking gameplay consists of running straight and passing to someone out of position, followed by the most lackluster rucking I’ve ever seen. The commentary doesn’t match what’s happening 50% of the time, penalties seem completely arbitrary and the tutorials, when they do work, are rubbish. So the gameplay is unbearable but at least they have the rights to Kiribati so I suppose that makes it all worthwhile.

What a joke of a game, $65 CAD, unbelievable.

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I also created an account just to be able to tell everyone how awful this game is. I waited a long time to be able to play the full version today upon release, as the pre release version was unplayable. Unfortunately it’s still the same. I swear no one at Big Ant has even tried playing the game or a single match. If they had, they wouldn’t release such an embarrassment of a game.

The amount of bugs is seriously mindblowing. Game keeps crashing on my gaming PC. The menu’s in Career mode are stupid. After every game, it reset’s my squad and I refuse to keep having to overhaul my line up before every match. Gameplay is still beyond awful, it’s unplayable. In a simulated match, teams can never get more than 20 points. Can’t add real players to my custom teams. Even Luke Jacobson is the Chiefs goal kicker and nails them every time, like wt actual eff?

There is so much missing here, it is unbelievable. They should have just taken Rugby 22 and refined it, added some customisation and stats, and then added the licensed teams and you would have had a really good product. I spent a lot of time on Rugby 22, so this is a big disappointment.

I remember a video from (if I remember correctly) the Big Ant CEO talking about how they want to be able to have real players and that’s important to them and the player base. It’s true. But they forgot to make a product that even works. No point having all the licensing and photo realistic faces if you can’t even play a match without wanting to uninstall the game.

The gaming industry is already in an awful place with the terrible products being brought to the market. This game is about as bad as it gets. If it doesn’t get fixed and soon, I hope it flops and causes a great financial loss because we who have bought the game have been ripped off.

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Hey team, very underwhelmed with day 1. The structure of “your” team looks nothing like any team from around the globe when attacking. Needs major attention.

Turnovers- when a team typically counter rucks to win the ball they then hold it at the back of their hind most feet whist their backline aligns. Not pick and go every time Not Realistic at all!

Box kicks- should only have a decent outcome if it is your 9 kicking it.

Kicking - being done by random players and not the teams usual kicker.

Career mode- team selection pee game I made many changes to my squad and team list none of which happened. Could only run substitutes during game time couldn’t affect them at half time.

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Unplayable, crashing every game i start.

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Looks like everyone on Xbox still doesn’t have update PS5 got where womens teams are selectable. It would be nice to have patch notes.

Sliders would also do a lot to fix things in the game for ourselves.

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@JNT_BA @RossSymons

Any way I can get a refund.
Have tried steam with no success

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Thank you for the feedback that you’re all providing us with.

We’re currently logging and recording the feedback coming in, so the team can prioritise what can be addressed in the coming days.

Rest assured, we hear you and are working tirelessly to get through your feedback. For anyone that is experiencing issues with stability and performance, please get in touch with us through our Support Site.

While I can’t guarantee that I’ll respond to everything in here, I’ll chime in when possible and update you where I can.

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