Just played an online game and oh my gosh, its awful. The online variant of the gameplay is so unstable and buggy. Lots of random offsides. Can’t complete one scrum. Tackles not registering. Rucks are very glitchy, with some instances the 9 couldn’t get the ball out the ruck and was stuck, giving away a penalty. And in about the 55th minute, no one could join the ruck, and the game was stuck. We waited until the clock got to about 70 minutes and the other player decided to leave. It was an awful experience.
Sorry man, maybe play league then? disagree. Rucking plays a huge part of Rugby, Maybe an option for auto for those that feel that way , but Automatic rucks in Rugby is like saying automatic play calling in American football. How many you send into the ruck, when to send and how many to send into the ruck, when to go for the Jackle, when to hold on all plays a huge part in the thinking mans Rugby. Don’t make rucking a task, enjoy the process, because just swinging the ball out wide left and right will get boring really quick.
On that note, Would be a good idea for Big Ant to switch the holding the ball from holding down A to Left analog press down, so that is makes it easier to manage binding more players as you hold on at the same time.
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No it’s not that. Unsure why the players don’t even seem eligible to join the ruck. I’ll see if it fixes itself in the updates. I’ve seen the YT videos too but the players just don’t act the same way around the when I play.
The best thing is to watch the ruck closely. Most of the times I only bind 1-2 sometimes 0 on defense. You have to wait when you strike. Concentrate on turning into the supporting rucking player and then you press bind once and spam steal button, (you may be able to just hold steal down) so that only one player goes in and attempts the steal. The end result will be good you get the turnover, but the animation is of because it should be a quick steal rather then 1 player plowing over 2-3 offensive rucking players. Either way you do get possession, The only issue now is that the AI will hold on , and not get penalized, that is why , many times , you are like why can’t I get the steal, my theory is the AI is holding on without getting penalized. So I am sure they are working on balancing that, because as a user , we are getting penalized for holding on to long.
[SirPonsembyII] Make sure you are not holding the direction or analog buttons down when binding your players. This will slow the binding process down. Follow up a tackle with the supporting rucking player bind just one player on defense and quickly press steal, like a bind steal combo, you will get more turnovers like this. As mentioned they are still working out the kinks because the AI hold on and does not get penalized many times. That why sometimes you think you should get the ruck turnover and you don’t. There still lots of balancing they need to do, but overall it does seem to be progressing because you do not want ping pong rucking rugby.
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So, I figure you’re on Xbox then? On PS5 I do that quite often and yeah not every ruck, just ones where my players are nearby/there first and where it looks like a steal could be on. It happens sometimes, but not others. Sometimes when I have several players there ready before the opposition I can’t even get my players to go into the ruck. Yet other times they will.
There is still some apparent randomness to winning ball at ruck for me.
On PS5 I’m having an issue where sometimes even not holding any direction, players will just stand there and not engage in a ruck until a couple of seconds later.
When is the end of the Early Access again ? October 127th ?
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Yes I don’t hold much hope for Thursday patches, Tuesdays seem to be the best and bigger ones.
Hey you never know, could surprise us today, but the games moving in the right direction for me on the PS5, I just wish they’d sort out the support runners and floating passes and for me that would be a massive, huge, gigantic (lol) move in the right direction.
Also the forwards going where they are supposed to go into rucks and the backs in the backline as at rucks I have a lot of backs in the rucks and standing in the 10-12 positions are always a prop and lock.
Updates don’t usually appear here in the UK until around 2pm. Is wait till then and see what happens. I’m sure the guys will let us know soon.
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@JNT_BA Is there a reason for the lack of signage in stadiums? Is it something that is yet to be added, or something that BigAnt is unable to do due to some sort of copyright/advertising restrictions?
Also, are there more stadiums coming? Theres a lot there already which is amazing, just crossing my fingers for North Harbour Stadium for Moana Pacifica
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If you don’t touch the controller, the AI is unable to score
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We need sliders.
If you put Ai Vs AI, it’s 0-0 even in a 40 minute match
Can someone explain the benefit of sliders too me? Like, would we be able to increase AI kicking/passing etc? It seems like the ‘logic’ would have to be there first to this be useful to us.
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Yea sliders won’t help if the actual core mechanics simply ain’t in the actual gameplay yet. I mean the ai don’t tactical kick , they have 1 attacking play and even then they have winger on there shoulder and don’t utilise them . Sliders allow you to tweak gameplay but you can’t tweak what is not in the code . But I will say big ant have some if not the best sliders out here so if they can get the core gameplay working and add sliders like afl then the game could be great…
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I agree with you. I think the request for sliders is a bit premature. I think the core logic all needs to be in a solid place first and then sliders added last to let individuals make tweaks. I think adding sliders too early could also potentially make identifying bugs and their fixes more difficult. This way everyone is playing with the same logic or settings for now.
Update yet? And if so, what changed. Can I edit my teams with licensed players yet?
It’s licensing, most likely. Saracens’ home ground has advertising as of Tuesday’s update when it became StoneX Stadium rather than Mill Hill Stadium.
For anyone who doesn’t have X:
Today’s patch notes:
Full notes:
Improved Offside Detection
Issues with offside incorrectly triggering during box kicks have been rectified.
Corrected Lineup Retention
Official team lineup modification made in the Academy will be correctly retained.
Corrected Pass Input Issue
Corrected scenarios where the pass receiver post maul could not pass the ball.
Improved Stability
Resolutions to stability issues reported to our support team have been included in this patch.
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Don’t get why offside when you run before ruck finishes don’t work yet
So new update added something pretty cool. As shown below. Now you can actually get tackled when scoring a try. But instead of just being Held Up, it now actually awards the try and your player does a animation to actually score the try
I know the difficulty was not any focus for this update as it would have mentioned so in the patch notes, but Big Ant, please try to focus on it for the next few updates. See below screenshots of an average “Hardest Difficulty” game I have. Even when playing as Portugal against Ireland, score is about the same. AI Attacking needs to improve drastically.
Then the AI still only chooses Scrums like 95% of the time. Please also try to focus on that.
Otherwise, I like the new try addition. Thanx Big Ant for that! But now we need to focus on other core game mechanics to make the game more enjoyable. (AI difficulty, AI Attacking and AI always going for scrums)
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Absolutely agree. That’s a great summary of the new update. The ability to ground the ball when tackled is a fantastic addition.
Looking ahead, alongside the focus on difficulty as mentioned, I’d love to see some improvements to the breakdown mechanics. My biggest frustration right now is how slow they feel. No matter what combination of buttons I press, I can never seem to get quick ball and attack with momentum when the opposition is on the back foot. It makes the game feel somewhat one-dimensional, as the defense always seems to have a chance to reset due to the constant slow ball.
I always thought Rugby Challenge did the breakdowns really well. There was great depth to how rucks worked in that game. It introduced an element of risk and reward when committing players to a ruck. After a successful carry, you could choose to commit more players to the ruck to increase your chances of quick ball and continue attacking with momentum. However, this came with the risk of leaving yourself vulnerable if the opposition managed to get a turnover. Similarly, when defending, committing too many players to contest the breakdown could leave you exposed to overlaps and attacking opportunities for the opposition. That balance really added depth to the game and made the breakdowns feel more dynamic.
Overall some nice changes this week, looking forward to what’s next.
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