Rugby 25 Megathread

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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Nope, sorry, but you are ill informed, In the Rugby challenge series you can, change so many ways the AI reacts, if they pass more, if they run on to the ball more ect, ect . You have over all game play sliders, and then you have custom team sliders that changes the way each team plays in the individual slider section under each team. You can change many, many, many things with sliders. I use them a lot in both RLL3 with a customs slider system that a fan did, and in Rugby Challenge 2/3/4 there are endless amount of sliders, that can even effect the way an individual team plays. So sliders are bad bass.

Reply to [bowcanlorens]:
Agreed, if they could combine Rugby Challenge’s 3 ruck logic with Rugby 25 animations like simple steal and 1, 2, or 3 man ruck pushover. Then it would be a great system. The push over contested ruck, is actually better than Rugby challenge’s multiple rucking player graph turnover. They just have to fix the Y contest (tackle, stand and steal animation) to happen faster like Rugby challenge 3/4/. The animation and idea are there in Rugby 25, they just have not implemented it yet. But have to add up to 5 in the ruck, for it to be fully functionable. To use as a stragtegy
Reply to

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Until today’s update, the game was running fine, there were no more bugs. Now after I made the new update, the old and most annoying problem has returned, the one where the player after being put down with the ball, nothing happens anymore, the player remains stuck with the ball on the ground while the other players from both teams sit and look at him without being able to do anything, time passes and all you have to do is exit the match and replay it in the hope that the same bug will not happen again when the player is put down on the ground. PLEASE RESOLVE THIS BIG AND VERY ANNOYING PROBLEM ONCE AND FOR ALL, I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES IT HAPPENS TO ME. THANK YOU!

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Hey fellas,

@JNT_BA @Lachie_BA

Again cheers for the updates game is slowly getting more fluid but still requires a lot of work.

Positives

  • Continued updates
  • Graphics/player likenesses with scans
  • Licensed teams
  • New animations

Areas for improvement

Attack:

The biggest issue with gameplay is still the lack of depth on Attack. The support lines/angles, player movement and player positioning. It’s so unstructured, lacks strategy and currently meaningless positioning. Looks like a free for all out there with no intent or plan.

Support lines have improved a lot but still very inconsistent. Finding that when the first receiver gets the ball from the half back, the support line are too deep which leaves the ball carrier isolated and destroys your opportunity to get any momentum on attack. Sometimes the support runners are running weird angles, either back towards the ruck, or flat footed and not supporting the ball carrier at all. Finding if the first receiver runs, the two outside players next to him don’t keep up with him and it’s only the wing which creates a weird running line where two players get crammed in the middle and are left out of the attack, or if you pass the ball, it goes straight to those players standing deep rather then the wing who is keeping up with the ball carrier which kills any attacking momentum or flow.

Need to implement blocker and sliders, where you have the ball carrier, two players outside him with the outside player cutting on the inside angle to take the short ball off the ball carrier, and the middle player drifting/ sliding behind the player running the short ball line to give the ball carrier the option to pass out the back and feed outsides. That way the ball carrier has two options of support players running different lines/angles. This really needs to be added into the game to add some life to the attack.

Tactics - players aren’t positioning themselves correctly to the tactic you’ve selected. Players are still standing in the same position when I try change tactic. For example 1-3-3-1, forward pods don’t position themselves correctly and the 10/ playmaker Is standing too deep. 10 needs to be positioned behind outside the forward ball carriers outside shoulder so they can receive that tip pass out the back then have the option to either hit a gap or feed the outsides or next forward pod outside 10. That is the whole plan with that move. Suck in defenders with the forward pod then create that space out the back for the playmaker and outsides.

You need to have the ability to control where you have your forward pods running, e.g off 9, 10 or 12. Otherwise the default needs to be a correct backline formation 10,12,13 with your wingers on either side with the 15 joining the line if in the opposition half. 10 is hitting too many rucks, standing blind or out the back out of play. Get them involved in the attack. Make it realistic. Need the 10 steering the ship.

Hope you guys make this a priority as would add so much more depth, realism, strategy and enjoyment to your game!

Rucks- Players a binding too slow which kills any opportunity to get quick ball and attack. Half your backline keeps getting sucked in to the rucks to which again ties in with player positioning. A good solution would be quick bind which is whoever is closest to the ruck or strong bind which will suck in just forwards to the ruck and will increase your chances of securing the ruck and winning the ball.

General Kicking - Need to bring in bombs/up and unders with descent height and distance to allow you to put pressure on the opponent, put pressure on with your chase line and try force an error or win back possession with your chasers competing in the air, giving the team a better position to attack up the field. The Aerial battle is a big part of rugby so would be cool to see it implemented.

Box kicks - Need to allow for a bigger distance when box kicking

Goal Kicking - Enjoying how a lot of players have their own kicking style. Find that whenever I aim away from the post it goes over and when I aim at it I miss. Need to sort this mechanic out as makes no sense.

Pocket kicker - Need to make sure the 10 is not running on to the ball when kicking otherwise it defeats the purpose of putting them in the pocket.

AI decision making - Still putting 30-40 points on AI even at the hardest difficulty. Should implement sliders as some other players have mentioned.

Commentary - Still seeing commentary calls not matching with what’s happening on the field. E.g. Penalty kick for touch, commentator saying kicker has missed touch when the ball has gone out.

Player face scans - Will be awesome to see the South African teams and the European clubs have updated player face scans.

Teams lineups - Noticed a lot of the European club teams aren’t starting their best players. Assuming because of international duty with the six nations but would be good to get this sorted.

Please start addressing a lot of these important gameplay issues asap. Really stopping any major improvement of the game until these areas are addressed

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