Oh interesting. I didn’t notice that when I went through them. I’ll check when I’m in studio and get that updated.
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Aside from the bugs that have apparently crept in today with handling (ball going to ground weirdly and other buggy looking instances) I’ve heard some people asking for knock-ons.
I do agree that they need to have knock-ons become a part of the game. However they’ll spoil a lot of games if they’re just random. They need to be for a reason or a failing of the user. Perhaps entering another command before the receiver has received the ball, or only lightly tapping pass briefly, or passing to a receiver who’s about to hit a defender. Some actual reasoning or knock-ons will randomly spoil games when they eventually fix AI attack, you’re behind late in the game and about to score.
As for AI difficulty, I’m sure Big Ant are working on that in the background, well part of their team is and I think it’s probably not the easiest balance to strike. You don’t want to make an unbeatable AI that breaks every tackle and steps every defender whilst winning every ruck, as it could have the opposite problem of not just being too hard, but being impossible. It’d just be good to hear that they are making some progress in those builds the gameplay team are working on, though it’s not ready for release yet.
If one person is bringing things up on this thread I can understand the admins not replying, but it’s been probably the most discussed thing over the last 3 weeks, by a large percentage of the players talking here.
I appreciate the improvements, things are overall heading in the right direction, but I do worry that at the rate of improvements to issues relating to important aspects relating to gameplay, that we’ll run out of patches before things are where we’d hope them to be.
So many little things are just not happening with this game.
Will we ever see proper structure with backs mostly doing the role of backs and the forwards being forwards, or will we continue to forever see props running in tries like Centres?
Will the pocket player actually be available every time (not necessarily the 10, but maybe the 12 or 15?), or are they all stuck on the bottom of a ruck? Often I have no pocket player.
Will bump offs ever work effectively, whilst the timing of fends be made a little harder. I’ve described before that evasion moves need to basically be what I desribed as 6/10 effective. Right now it would be fair to say that the Fend is 9/10, the side-step 5/10, the bump-off 1/10 (for me at least, for others it might be 2-3/10).
These are just a few issues where the game isn’t functioning properly. It’s worrying for paying customers who are showing faith in the process and have no idea (because they’re not part of the BA team) what’s going on, or if there’s any promise on the horizon.
When you have things like 3 trophies for Playstation that 0.0% of players have got and the platinum impossible, then you have a broken game in some aspects.
At the least though when BA have responded to us, it has been with courtesy and we need to afford them the same. We’re all trying to get to a point where there’s an enjoyable game for all. 
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At least you guys are putting out 2 patches a week. There aren’t too many companies that do that. It’s improving slowly, it’s going to take time. Rugby Union is a tough game to try and simulate fully in a video game. This patch has definitely been a better one than the last couple from the 2 games I’ve played. I like the fend off from the big front row guys, you need to add back in the side step for the backs especially the wingers. I’m not sure if you have restricted all teams to 3 offloads max but they could do with being able to offload as and when they can. Will you be implementing substitutions into the game via a stoppage in the game like what you have done with line outs, scrums, goal kicks etc? At the moment you can’t see whether there have been any subs made in the match itself. Certainly not in AI v AI. I know you guys have lots to do and am sure these will get added down the line. Thank you very much for the 2 patches this week and the addition of the womens 6 Nations competition. 
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While I’m usually a little hesitant to pull out specific things cause as soon as we mention them if they don’t happen immediately people get up in arms about why!!!?? You said something about it.
Yes this is something we were even discussing yesterday its one thing on a very large list and yes it has had work done on it. I was playing around with some changes made and it was working better. I had a game that wasn’t a complete defense-fest. So then we send feedback to that gameplay programmer they continue with updating it. These things are not instant. No I will not provide the complete list of things we want to update for the reasons above. But yes AI v AI is one of the things “I” am specially watching for.
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I appreciate your engagement but infairness, when we dont have the pathways or promised communications, people are always going to negative when there are significant gameplay issues and they see a patch for unrelated items.
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I don’t worry about the negativety that doesn’t bother me I’ve been doing this for a long time. Sometimes you are choosing the wrong target and that’s fine, you see my name and there’s a target. But when I don’t say anything, it’s not my call to make. But I sit here and I read it and take it, and try my best to pass it on and get results.
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That’s fantastic. I hope other posters can respect the fact that any potential changes are an indeterminate time away, but it’s getting some attention and potential progress is looking somewhat promising.
Maybe a few of us regulars can politely remind other posters that this is NOT an indication of such an improvement coming in the immediate future.
Thank you very much JNT!
Hi Big Ant,
Note: the below is based on playing womens matches, im unsure if it translates to the mens matches too.
Thanks for adding the womens teams, stadiums also look much better with the advertising (yasss!), really adds to the experience! Just noting that the advertising at the halfway mark, evident in MadDragons latest vid, is upside down on the field.
Additionally on the AI and rucks, the AI still cant score when i put the controller aside. It seems that the only hope they have is a fend-off rather than actually passing into space, offloading, or reading which side the overlap is on. As mentioned before, decosion making regarding kicks and where play is on the field still needs work.
With rucks, i can retain the ball on hardest difficulty without commiting any players to the ruck while the AI commits multiple players, this should result in a turnover. It would be good to have this system work on a players commited/timing basis instead of chance.
Edit: I just saw your previous posts as i was writing this but posted incase it is helpful at all.
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Never don’t post about something that you notice. Even if someone on the team is aware of it doesn’t mean my team or I are. Letting us know is great, we look into it get a report done and pass it on.
Some things we can get done fast, somethings take a lot more time.
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@ JNT I play AI v AI all the time so I can give feedback there. Like I’ve already mentioned todays patch was a step forward for AI v AI. I’ve managed to get a couple of positive results. A 7-5 and a 7-0. This is better than the 0-0 I was getting this past week or so. I play my games on 20 minute halves with the AI set to medium, and side camera angle. Not sure whether camera angle has anything to do with gameplay other than making it easier for some players to see the game easier or better. But as far as AI v AI goes I wouldn’t have thought it makes a difference. I thought I would mention my settings for the games in any case. Again thanks for the update today.
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Hi Team,
Custom Women’s Teams are playable. Just did a test creating one team for Super Rugby Women’s and trying it out. Thanks for the update to add women’s teams.
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Still seeing improvements week on week. Appreciate some way to go but above all the game remains fun. It’s a great addition to bring in the women’s teams and six nations looks great. I imagine there was a pretty big contractual commitment to get that in in time and now it’s done hopefully more time for general developments and improvements.
I’ve been playing rugby games as long as they have existed and most have had flaws, it’s a complex game and I’m sure very difficult to get right (most players of the real game struggle, and as for the referees… 
).
Let’s keep the faith, and cheers Big Ant for having a good go at it.
I quite like the weekly updates to see what is changing. Don’t disagree with the majority of improvements needed, but how many games give you week on week updates?!?
Love the passion on here, keep at it everyone x
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Hi, enjoying the game alot, only thing I will mention is the grass, it seems to have gone backwards, other than that keep up the good work
When you miss a pass, the ball bounces too much and goes across the field! Can you make bounces more realistic?
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Playing devil’s advocate.
Surely if some of the budget allocated to the art team was spent on programmers it’d allow more gameplay improvements to be made, and offer us the chance of playing an enjoyable rugby game that has less licensed teams, photogrammetry etc, rather than a good looking game that is absolutely lacking in all aspects of gameplay.
What’s done is done, but with staffing being one of the biggest costs in game development it’s hard not to feel the resources allocation could’ve been better, licensed and properly captured players, teams, stadia are excellent additions, but only if the gameplay is great
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When playing a tournament it’s good to have the opportunity to play all the matches but why can’t we clearly choose only one team at the start of the competition?
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It does give you that feeling that you’re not locked into one team (or a number of them if playing with friends), doesn’t it? Has been a design choice of Big Ant Studios for a long time (as far back as RLL1 I think).
As you can simulate all the way up to the final and then play as any team who made it, it does feel wrong even if you don’t choose to do that. It also somehow minimizes the exciting tension in a game, as you know if somehow things go wrong you can just pick another team.
I prefer the approach of most other sports development teams in making you commit to a team (or teams if playing with friends) right at the start of a competition, but hey it works I guess. It’s just never got less odd for me.
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See, this is probably the best explanation from a gamefeel point of view. When I see this suggested my brain just goes… just do it that way but with the whole season and don’t play as the other teams. But this brings a new perspective, “I” didn’t think about.
It’s certainly something we would like to do in the future.
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I think only around 6 or 7 missing hairs. The face scans though for England, Wales and Scotland women look excellent
France women look like they are still awaiting more photogrammetry but what has been added looks really good.
I hope for custom competition that in future update we can assign a trophy and see that cutscene at end of tournament I think that would be nice for created competition
And also being able to change stadium for custom competition would be great
Yeah, we’ll be pushing an update specifically for those players missing assets hopefully soon. 
Got them sorted as quick as I could to get that out.
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