Per Ross Symons’ Twitter on Tuesday: “We definitely will be focusing on Rugby 25 difficulty level over the next few weeks.” That’s straight from Big Ant’s CEO.
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Last night I discovered a couple of issues with 2 player offline games.
At Half Time when you go to Team Management, it’ll only let the player with the lead controller/profile access their team for changes and substitutions. You have to wait until you’re back in the game and then the second player can pause the game and then go into Team Management and make subs. This means they miss out on the chance for Half Time subs.
Also if the secondary player has a game on their own against the AI, they can’t choose the stadium, but can choose any other option. The game seems to want the lead controller to do nearly everything in 2 player offline.
If during 2 player offline a player gets injured, (the kind of injured that brings the game to a halt for substitution with the player laying on the ground in the cutscene), the game won’t allow you to substitute him after that. This happened early in the game and I tried to change him off immediately after the cutscene, then at Half Time, then once more mid way through the second half. This was the player using the lead controller.
Hopefully these can be looked at?
I really hope the changes will work for difficulties from Medium up, as it’s important that the bottom two difficulties are Easiest and Easy as they are descibed, as I’m trying to teach people how to play the game and it’s important to have some success before graduating up the levels. I’m upto Hard and Hardest and can plainly see that the difficulty definitely needs work there.
Haven’t noticed that myself. Maybe your Xbox is on its last legs?
I also experienced this recently for the first time on Xbox Series X
Definitely seeing return of floaty passes on Xbox X, as well as passes going directly behind ball carrier and players all running very inward lines, regardless of gaps in front, even running through rucks
Also when there are kicks, or when players are standing in defensive line, both AI and own players are moving very restlessly (sometimes into offside positions but never get pinged). Looks quite strange and quite frustrating in gameplay - agree they should not be stationary, but needs to be toned down.
Tried playing with the offside indicator - seems to be generally correct but decisions not always correctly applied
Would like to see more consistent organisation and proper formation of the backline, less forwards at first receiver and less backs going into the rucks and mauls
Rogue passes are very hard to pick up from floor, and sometimes the player who picks up the ball is AI controlled until next phase
The game does need to be made much easier for players like myself who are struggling to pass the ball
I think sliders will be huge help and that will allow me to pass the ball easier with less button presses
Maybe also AI penalty increases just to give me a chance to move up the field
As for player faces I’d like to see South Africa next
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I find the replacement bar very blunt…
I would’ve loved it if it showed under the scoreboard like in real life…
Also nowhere it shows if you get a yellow/red card.
And nowhere it shows bonus points.
By just updating all this, will ad a whole lot authenticness to the game itself
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Hi BA team,
Just a couple of additional points after playing the most recent patch.
Critical Bugs & Core Logic Issues
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Offside Bug (High Priority - Game Breaking)
- Offsides are being incorrectly called when passing to an onside teammate.
- This is a fundamental error that must be resolved immediately, as it severely impacts core gameplay and is unacceptable in a full-price simulation title.
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Ruck Logic Improvements
- Current system allows a single player to clear out multiple defenders, which is highly unrealistic.
- Improved logic is needed to account for player numbers and momentum when contesting possession.
Gameplay Mechanics & Animations
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Try Line Collision System
- When an attacker dives from distance, collisions with defenders should trigger realistic outcomes:
- Held up animations
- Ball lost in contact animations
- Try scoring in contact animations
- Variety in these outcomes is essential, with occasional TMO decisions adding realism.
- When an attacker dives from distance, collisions with defenders should trigger realistic outcomes:
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Lineout Running Lines
- Attacking players currently run back into heavy traffic after lineouts, making it difficult to clear the ball without resorting to skip passes.
- Improved AI logic is needed for players to run smarter, wider support lines to create space and continuity. Half backs often run laterally whilst passing to cover space to a wider/deeper standing playmaker ensuring the heavy traffic area is cleared. This also provides space back on the inside into traffic for inside runners such as the near touch winger.
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22-Metre Defensive AI Shape
- AI defensive lines need to tighten around the ruck when defending inside their own 22.
- A defender on either side of the ruck (Pillars) should be quick to apply pressure and shut down the halfback snipe exploit while also providing a strong defence against “1 off the ruck” crash over offence.
Controls & Input Responsiveness
- Goal Kicking Mechanic Rework
- The current requirement to flick up on the right stick is inconsistent and often fails to represent the user’s input, especially in terms of power.
- This results in an underpowered, immersion-breaking animation.
- A more intuitive and responsive input method is required for consistent accurate goal kicking. Difficulty also needs to be increased by adding further aiming challenges.
Looking forward to seeing some work done on the difficulties this week. Please make hardest extremely difficult to win a match 
Thanks for your work and for taking on our feedback.
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Since everyone has already mentioned the most important aspects of improved gameplay–here’s some smaller details that need to be improved.
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We need better replays after tries, currently the angle is not showcasing the broadness of the try. I recommend changing the camera angle to something more distant / birds eye view, and showing multiple cuts leading up to the try. ( breakthroughs, big plays etc.)
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Goal kicking needs to improve, it’s basic and inconsistent. Many times I can’t even see the wind signals on the grass. This must be improved. Let us control height, curve, etc. Also give us an option to change to a kicking camera angle that does not follow the ball. ( similar to Rugby World Cup 2011 )
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Please speed up lineouts and scrums, they’re currently too slow and it slows down the gameplay. I know it’s a realistic aspect of Rugby, but try to make it more fluent for video game sake. Waiting for a scrum to start deadens the fun aspects of the game–especially when the scrum input feels delayed and off.
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Please change the “age” section in the stats when a player scores a try. Change it to “meters gained” or “defenders beaten”. Way more interesting.
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It’s definitely not a good thing when the grass looks like it’s from Valheim ( see picture below ). This is on the highest graphical setting. Grass and lighting needs to be improved greatly.
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Im officially done for a couple of months the game is clearly so unfinished the little “fixes” i feel havent done much in a week or more in some cases making gameplay worse. Hopefully when i return to the game it will be a much better experiance
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Definitely need to increase the number of players that can potentially be added to a ruck. Would make the attack and defense permutations far more varied throughout the game since space across the field would have more variations due to more players committed at the breakdowns.
As it is, things feel very repetitive since all rucks max out at 3 per side and it leaves a lot of defenders free to defend the next phase over and over.
There should be instances where the user or cpu will spot an opportunity and really want to commit bodies to try and turn the ball over, or even just to drag more of the opponents players into the ruck. Additionally the mechanic should be balances where you might need to commit more bodies to retain possession if the opponent gets players into the ruck earlier but have not turned the ball over.
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Its an issue with the Stade de France on the xbox version. Colours change all the time. You can get around it playing in other stadiums, but BigAnt create this auto force thing for Cup finals to be played in Stade de France so you cant even avoid it.
Also want to flag some issues with xbox achievements. As I decided to test a lot of them now multiple patches have been done.
Few not working
- Try-umphant (200 tries accross all game modes)
- Defence! - 800 tackles across all game modes
- Internet points - 100 points in online quick matches
- collector - win 3 tournament trophies
All my my stats say they are done but achievements havnt popped.
Also noticed this trying to do the yellow card one. When a player is carded the name plate for all players changes to “PREFERREDROLE_SINBIN”
Sin bin player also has an auto substition in place, which shouldnt happen, but also doesnt work, so I guess overall its ok, but needs to be removed either way. It also now takes 6 high tackles to get 1 yellow card which is kind of rediculous.
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Same here for me. Not enough core gameplay improvements in the weekly patches to warrant me continuing playing the game.
Back to Rugby 22 for my ‘union’ fix. I wish any Rugby 25 improvements all the best. 60 Euros for this Irishman is a big purchase issue…but I just can’t play the game in it’s current state.
ádh mór…wish you luck.
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Would be nice to have hight/bad tackles when you spamming the button at the wrong timming so it’s not only based randomly, so it’s force players to not spam but being careful about the timming.
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Yep great to excellent points
We need you on the Big Ant team I’m thinking Valhalla_Vagabond
The offside one , I was starting to wonder was just me going crazy but at least it’s not just me getting those
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6 High Tackles. This is weird and not good ! Unrealistic.
Things have changed a lot after I had a Yellow Card incident 2 weeks ago. It was 3 High tackles back then.
I think it should be a Yellow Card for 1 high tackle incident or keep it at 3 for the entire match not half’s. Red Card if the same player offends again.
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Individual players don’t seem to change enough, there seems to be not enough of an incentive to sign better players in career as in my opinion all the medium to high tier players feel the exact same
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I beg Big Ant…
Fix this stamina issue of it running out every 4 steps… no logic
Make the Ai much more of an attacking threat. With logical decision making and space identification.
Allow us to customise official teams… don’t know why we are still waiting on this….
Add gameplay sliders for user customisation.
I hope you see this as constructive criticism as I have purchased every big ant title since RLL3. Right now due to this game I will never purchase another BigAnt title.
I believe this community is owed an update on what to expect for this month going forward.
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I haven’t started a career, but even in Play Now and Competition you can tell that there isn’t the variation in skills that is needed in this game.
The difference in speed between a fullback and a front rower doesn’t reflect reality.
The difference in typical strength between a lock and a winger isn’t noticeable.
Sidesteps from bulky forwards aren’t much different than from speedy backs.
A tackle from a number 8 is pretty much just as likely to stick as a small halfback.
I appreciate that in real life, the differences in skills and strengths across all of the positions in Rugby has narrowed somewhat, but not this much.
Rugby '06 and Rugby '08 innovated with Star Players and this was a pretty important and well liked feature. International teams typically had anywhere from 1 to 4 players which were dominant in their skill areas.
It wasn’t all just extra skill in fending and stepping either.
The likes of Johnny Wilkinson, Gavin Henson and Francois Steyn could punt the ball out of their 22 and almost get it to the opposition 22 on the full!
With All Black Jerry Collins you could hit the opposition players in a tackle and more often than not force the ball out of his hands (not always a knock on) for you to scoop up!
It was a lot of fun. There is no reason we can’t have those kind of things again.
By the way, I’m on here a fair bit suggesting this and that to Big Ant, talking about what isn’t quite where it could be, but there are a lot of areas where this game is looking pretty good.
Graphically in a lot of areas the game looks good.
The feeling of drawing and passing is a lot of fun.
Drawing in players and offloading in a tackle is also well done.
The amount of content, teams etc is great (could still have the NZ NPC tho). 
I even like most of the music in the menus!
Please though, also look at what NotRoss has said and see about players varying properly and make some of the stars of the game stand out. Even if they get slightly exaggerated, it’s great having some players be weapons that you really want to sign to your team.
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Yeah for sure, the stars also feel to be given out very liberally in this, like no offense to the players that have them but there’s players on squads like western force that don’t even make the starting 23 but still have a star
Agree with everything you’ve said here majorly
The passive tackle breaks also need to be looked at, like a 8/prop running full sprint into someone should 70% of the time or so result in a dominant carry
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