Hey guys, wanted to make a different thread out of a curiosity more than anything. Plenty of times since the game game out, the game was in a state where basically any team could beat any other team even on hardest difficulty. Theres even an achievement based on winning with a team rated 25 lower, which wasnt tough at launch.
3 months on, many changes to rucks, 50/22, handoff spam and all the rest off it. Wanted to see how hard it is to compete with lower rated teams to see if it was still doable/fair.
Nothing wrong with the hardest team being hard to beat, but wondering if its actually doable any more with low rated teams.
So for the Current Patch.
Playing against 90 rated South Africa on hardest difficulty, whats the lowest rated you can still beat them with, and whats stopping you from going lower?
Played some matches today, and lowest ive got down to is 60 Rated, with Guatemala.
Below 70 felt tough.
But since hitting 60. Game feels very tough, you have abiut 20 minutes in the 1st half where you can remain competitive. But after the opening 20, I cant win a ruck, like not 1. Mine or theirs.
AI wins 100’% of lineouts as long as the choose front jumper.
50/22 unstoppable because full back is slow. And the handoff/offload chain of the AI means they get through for a try. Can start 80m out or 5m out, and they just march on.
I already won several matches in hardest difficulty with Lybia, Palestine, American Samoa, Lichtenstein, etc against New Zealand, France, South Africa… but I didn’t keep the record.
I beat Ireland (86?) using Estonia (56?) the other day but it was like 14 - 10 just playing around after the patch. I haven’t tried to smoke a higher level team by a decent score in a while.
This was the end game stats 5 min halves on hardest. Possession and territory is certainly tougher now. I was not getting the 50/22s though. You on PC or Console?
I have a very low drive to try and play accurate games with the state it is in lol. Still the worst rugby game to be fully released in my opinion
I have all the achievements now aside from the online ones (Robbed from me) because I refuse to go back online She needs a lot of work.
I swapped to end camera which in classic Rugby 25 fashion changes the way it plays. Managed to win with Guatemala, suddenly on end camera, team didnt just drop off at 20 mins, and even won numerous 5 v 1 ruck turn overs. So strange.
Playing on the Xbox because cant be bothered booting up the PC, the amount of brand new broken things is crazy, south africa on xbox have telekinesis ability and pass the ball any way they want
Gave one of your matches a go and tried with Palestine. Even swapping to end on camera, just cannot get the ball off them. Takes 4 tackles at every phase because they hand off, and even with 5 players in the ruck and them not having anyone for ages, not a single turn over. Was able to hold on to the ball from the first kick off for 30 seconds. Then never touched it again for the remainder of the half.
I feel like you could beat SA with more Stamina. Weirdly when I played Estonia vs Ireland I remember I never needed to even make a sub with Estonia as their stamina stayed 100% the entire match.
I was so robbed though by pants game design that the bugs and glitches cost me points and also meant they scored
So difficulty wise I feel it is definitely possible to do, but you have to beat the bugs and broken things like getting penalised for offside when you pass to your team mate or when you cannot change to the defender closest to the AI making the break etc.
Maybe once a week I will try to beat SA with that 37 rated team until I do ha ha. I guess at least there is a challenge buried somewhere in this game.
Things that stop me from going lower:
AI never miss a single tackle
AI never turn the ball over at ruck even if isolated
Many times when you do get across the line you are in a tackle and it just ends up held up anyway
The stamina drain makes it almost impossible to stay competing deep into the end of halves.
I would say, the AI just utilises the awful gameplay coding and just effectively cheats by relying on exploiting the glaring and frankly gamebreaking issues rather than beating you with good play or you making an error that wasn’t forced to occur with no chance to stop it because of bad gameplay mechanics and execution.
Youre doing far better than me. I actually gave that Chhatak game a go, and lost 35-0. Actually had more posession than I did when Ive used teams in the mid 50s.
But I cant think of a way you can actually currently win (again playing on xbox rather than PC, may have something to do with that because SA can actually score illegal tries on the xbox and they still count.)
I dont think theres anything wrong with the challenge of beating the top rated team vs lowest rated team being extremely difficult, because it SHOULD be.
Winning the world cup with Russia on RWC 2011, is such a hard challenge, and may litterally require a 3-0 win from a drop goal. But it can be done if you are good enough.
R25 has the issue that theres too much in the game that to me it doesnt feel like its doable based on you being good, almost feels like luck. Getting the ball back with the rating differential so high is crazy difficult. AI take the ball off you for fun. Back 3 just let them make easy territory. If the AI pick front jumper at lineout they win 100% no matter where you throw. Cant win on opponents scrum. And then the sidestep-offload cycle means you commit a quarter of your team every phase just to tackle the player. Sometimes you get a magic turnover then a 50m break and they dont tackle you, but doesnt feel like you outplayed them, more you just got lucky and scored.
(Happy to also accept if everyone else is actually able to beat the with ease and maybe I just suck at the game )
But I think it better outlines the flaws in the game looking at the extremes. The challenge should feel doable, but you need to play very well. But when you cant win a scrum, lineout, 95% of the rucks, cant kick for territory and cant tackle 2 to 1. And Ox Nche is outspringing my wingers after 30 mins. Im not sure what players are meant to do
I just thought it would be interesting to see how everyone gets on in each update with lower rated players to see if the ability to play is getting better. And think maybe if the BigAnt guys join in to when play testing, they may see other big flaws with mechanics already in the game, even if people have flagged them in FAQ before.
Done a few but feel I just get frustrated most of the time due to issues with the game as mentioned AI just purely cheats or you score tries but it gets called held up because you got tackled, I felt AI scores most tries because when changing players on defense AI just gives you the wrong player or the player won’t react on your inputs for a second or 2
I just want to say, for me, this is stupid! These lower ranked teams were included to be part of the game to represent the world in union. They were never included so that a tier 3 and beyond team could ever beat a Tier 1 nation. Why on earth would you ever be ok with a team like Estonia to beat mighty Springboks? Play against teams with the same overall, then it will be equal and enjoyable, as it should be. Play Qatar vs Pakistan ect or Boks vs All Blacks, not the other way around. Ungreatful for the effort to include all these teams, thats what it sounds like!!!
No one said it is a bad thing, some like to challenge them selfs playing with weakest teams against the best and all honestly difficulty it gives is actually what hardest should give you when playing same rated teams but atm playing same rated teams you smash them easily 30+
I understand that, but then it’s the AI that’s crap and needs to be improved. But some people here complain that it’s impossible to play as a low rated team against a top team, which should be the case. They were not included to beat Tier 1, 2 or 3 nations, they were included to part of the game, not to become world beaters.
She needs a lot of work.
