Spot on. Rucking is such a key aspect of rugby (and hence rugby video games) that until these anomalies are ironed out, the game will remain hugely flawed. I pray that this week’s updates will focus on this, rather than trying to introduce new features.
Finally Ai have improved. Its the first time i am excited for where this game is going.
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Hi there,
I haven’t posted in a while but I’ve been closely following the game throughout the different updates. And to be fair progress has been made and the game is improving a lot (in my opinion, the current statate of the game is what I would call acceptable to be released).
However there’s still a few areas that need improving. Obviously the one thing is the AI difficulty, that has been mentioned a thousand times and is hopefully on the works.
There are very little penalties during games. It is a crucial part of the game of rugby and they normally decide turnovers and sometimes the final score of a game! Late and high tackles, or tacking in the air (this should be easy to add, and also potential yellow cards), in at the side of a ruck, offsides, forcing the opposition scrum to collapse, collapsing a maul, intentional knock-ons…so many things that never happen in the game but happen so often in real life. I will include here the fact that the opposition chooses scrum 90% of the times, no matter where the penalty is located. I’m sure you guys are working on this.
In competition mode, someone mentioned a couple days ago the fact that you should commit to a team and I completely agree, choosing it in the beginning and using only this one team through the whole calendar. Adding a menu where we could manage the squad, and carrying over sanctions and injuries would be great aditions.
When kicking at goal, I think wind effect shoud be stronger, making it a bit more difficult and adding a bit of uncertainty. Right now it is too easy. Maybe make the “aiming line” a bit shaky, even more if it is an important kick. And one for the art department, it would be nice to have different kicking tees models and colors. The one in the game is only used by Henry Slade in the whole world rugby, most players use rugbybricks kicking tees now!
Also kicking in-game can be improved I think. It is nice to have all grubbers, chips and up-and-unders but we should have a bit more control and variety of distance and height specially with the last ones. At the moment it is impossible to contest a high ball because the ball is very little time in the air. And for the 1674th time, please, make the kicker in the pocket stationary! This way we may be able to score a drop goal…
And the last improvement with kicking should be the possibility to send a player next to the side line ready for a cross kick. It is one of the most spectacular ways to score a try and the one that makes the audience cheer the most!
I think with the last updates the difference among players are a bit more noticeable, but I think it should be even more evident. Heavy vs light players, kicking and tackling skills…and passing!! All elite players can pass really well nowadays but how can all 20-meter passes end up well? Knock ons should happen more often specially if the passing skills of the thrower or the handling skills of the reciever are not great.
Also the mauls are very unrealistic, how can 2 players stop the opposition 7 men? Please make it work like real, needing your whole pack to commit in the maul only to stop the other team moving forward.
A couple of weeks ago, every tackle inside the goal was a drop out because it was disallowed on the tmo. But now they are all awarded! There should be some variety here depending on both players involved, momentum etc. Just an idea. And please add the animation for a normal grounding of the ball. It would be good to have different animations for all 4 buttons on the controller.
I think I have covered most of the things I thought about when playing. Waiting for the game to improve a bit more before I start a career mode. For now, I’ve had friends over at home this weekend and they are considering buying the game now so that’s good news.
Don’t give up on this Big Ant! We’re getting there!
And for the community, keep sharing your thoughts, I’m sure all these ideas will eventually be added to the game, if not now, maybe for the next world cup in Rugby27 haha
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I agree Rio10. I was also thinking of a 3 match test series v classic Australia, classic New Zealand
Those Lions series are 3 games, being able to host the series, maybe a trophy at the end in a cutscene would be great
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I played a custom tournament with all 4 teams as human players in the weekend. I’ve been holding off on writing about it here because there were several glitchy issues in the games that I knew would be a nightmare to describe, but I’ll try.
In all games there were glitches of varying degrees of impact on the game. They tended to nearly all happen as collisions between an attacking player and defending player. A large percentage of the issues (maybe 60%) were when a human controlled player on attack collided with a human controlled player on defence.
What would often happen is it would appear that animations would maybe skip frames and cause a warp in the animations of the players where you’d suddenly cease to see the rest of the tackle and the players would suddenly be on the ground in a tackle, or the attacking player would suddenly appear having moved past the defending player and be on his way further to the try line.
It appeared similar to the issues I’ve seen playing online, where you appear at times to either phase through players or suddenly warp forward a little bit past where an animation would show a tackle, but not as bad.
I would go so far as to say that yes it affected the competition pretty significantly. Two of the people are prospective buyers who I was hoping would want to buy the game, but this kind of glitchy collision detection with two humans is a bit of a deal breaker for them at the moment.
I have played one human vs another on other occasions, but it has not been this bad before. I suspect one of the last weeks three patches has done something which has caused it.
The newer players also said that as a part of the game, kicking was not particularly tempting to do as it always required pocket selection and when actually done the pocket player was at times not there, I mean no one, it would pass to a nearby forward.
They felt kicking was too easily charged down or disrupted. So they played a running game from inside their own 22’s ALL the time and to be fair this was slightly more practical. Kicking needs to have more value in the game.
They agreed with me that the 10 was in too many rucks along with other backs, there were too many forwards in the backline, not enough structure and it felt like every team were all backs as the tight five were all too fast.
The other thing was rucks. They had no idea how the ball was won in them, odd things would happen like 3 men getting to a ruck where there was one player and they wouldn’t win the ball. The steal and the contest tackle buttons appeared random in effect to them. All agreed that there isn’t an actual feel of a game contest there like in RWC 2011.
Other feedback was that the graphics were good. Many players looked like actual real life players. That they felt the basic running game is pretty well animated. The draw and pass situation is well implemented. The licensed teams generally looked like they should.
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Some feedback from playing today.
There was an instance of a try disallowed for being held up when my player dived on a grubbed kick in the in goal area. She was not being tackled and the opposition player was not particularly close or attempting to drive on the ball.
I think someone already mentioned the women’s 6 nations teams not updating after the line up is customised, and having the incorrect number of subs.
I think a way of improving at AI would be to make them kick more. They do sometimes make line breaks but are always too far away to capitalise due to not having field position.
Generally, rucks are the key area for improvement still as they are too complicated. I personally would like to see more turnovers based on players being isolated from support, and less emphasis on the button mechanics.
Thanks for the updates!
I’d like to make a point regarding whether or not we should be restricted to playing as only 1 team in competition mode or being allowed to play as many or few as we like.
I understand the player base wanting to play as only 1 team. However, I myself like to play my games AI v AI. I’m sure there are others who like to play this way too.
Being able to set up AI v AI for all teams allows the computer AI to play out and determine the results of matches. Pretty much simulating a complete competition.
I for one believe the devs should keep it as it is. For those who want to play as only one team can do so, and for those who want to play as multiple teams can do so too.
This way it keeps everyone happy.
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We would never take one way over another. If we get around to doing it as a team or the whole comp, both will be an option.
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Thanks for clearing that one up JNT. I can breath a sigh of relief. 
She was sure they would see right through her when she infiltrated the mens match. Her transparent approach left her feeling quite hollow…ha ha!
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I just have a feeling this is the week we get to edit our squads!
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Why is it getting worse I’m on career mode in 2027 finally get World Cup yet it’s 2023 World Cup ans the games all played in nz
Now when scoring a try the player puts the ball down then gets up and goes dead
Women’s rugby no newzeland team seriously what is actually going on it’s not getting better it’s worse
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Great answer totally agree. I’m not sure if we get a patch today or not but even if not I like the direction game is going.
Just as a reminder. While we welcome all our friends from around the world, we have a large French player base on the forum. Just want to reiterate this is a English(language) only space for now. Now I’m perfectly fine for those who may not know English to translate from any service and just use that. Any form of harassment for those who use these services and that may not be perfectly worded I have no tolerance for making fun of them.
The bots will every so often clean out or report messages that get triggered. I certainly don’t want anyone’s comments or feedback removed due to those systems.
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If we select only one team in compétition mode we will be able to modify our team in the main menu and not before each match, we could have a personalized menu for our team , it seems logical and that’s used on all sports games
New update: Almost no penalties again. This isn’t rugby! If there’s only one penalty in 80 minutes of simulation… Please increase the penalties in the game…!!!
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Helllo Big Aunty,
Steam V1.0.3015
Haven’t seen the patch note yet so i have no idea what’s been updated. Tried controller in hand to guess what’s been updated, still have no clue.
- I still had the invincible ball carrier, a huge bug that kills all competitiveness in the game and deprives the game of all interest. You either win or lose, so the outcome of a match can’t be biased by such a huge bug.
- AI tried some passes wide to the winger, but they were all bullet passes rolling on the ground
- pass receivers not facing oppposition. When player position is a mess, if you pass to a player getting back in position, he will catch the ball turning his back to defense. This never happens irl, either the guy runs backwards to his position or misses the ball but he sure cant catch it in his back
- stutter. Passing and running seemed more fluid a few weeks back, i feel like players stop before running again when catching the ball
- fend still super effective, bump not at all
- support runners sometimes cross when they should stay wide (could we control that ?)
- rucks. Having either one or 2 players in the ruck a few seconds before defense and still not being able to steal the ball. Same goes for AI when I hit a gap and lose my support.
Here are the few things that stood out after playing latest patch. No noticeable improvement in terms of gameplay. Of course the game is still missing a lot of aspects of the sport (lineouts, setplays, close line defense, mauls…) and we will wait a bit more for this fundamentals to be implemented, but in the meanwhile, the actual state of the game makes it unenjoyable. Random bugs and lack of control take away the competitiveness, which is the whole point of a sports game.
I know AI is still a mess but the game felt less bugged a few weeks back and at least online play was fun. Now even online play is a real pain and its so bugged it feels rigged and people don’t have the patience to complete a full online game anymore.*
Cheers !
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Very disappointed to read this. Really hoped we would be moving forward at least. Sounds like we are going backwards again. No use for me to install the new update then. I wonder if we will ever get a playable Rugby game that actually represents the sport. (FYI @MattW & @JNT_BA I am allowed to voice my opinion and frustration, as I am one of those that were part of this entire journey since EA1, almost a year later, we still do not even have the basics working.)
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I feel we just have accept our fate and come to terms that unfortunately gameplay wise we are not going to get much more than what we have now, as it seems they still struggling to with stuff we mentioned since day 1 of early access.
Yes game feels smoother than EA but I feel gameplay wise I actually enjoyed it more during EA6-7 especially when i played a comp in mlr with the sharks as most games went down to the wire even where AI won games with a drop goal or nice pass for a try. Gameplay wise the game just feels like it’s getting worst and worst AI boring and predictable feel like their fix for it is to nerf the hell out of player controlled teams rather than fixing the main issue being AI being to easy and predictable
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Did a new update come out?