I want to start off by saying I never thought this day would come, but it's here... We have a new rugby union game!
I've now had an hour or so worth of game time, having played through all the training scenarios as well as completing the Bledisloe Cup and I'm one game into my career mode. As it stands in its current format, I'm really enjoying the game for what it is.
Now let's get into some feedback.
General Feedback
I really enjoy the addition of set plays, and how they are executed in game. My only gripe with this addition is the fact that there was no base tutorial on how to execute these correctly.
The passing mechanics have been greatly improved from rugby challenge 3, in that your passes will often find the man as opposed to going into no man's land.
I feel like there's a lack of design around the forwards mechanics / setplays. You really only notice them when it comes to packing scrums, lineouts or the odd occasion where you shift the ball short. For example we should have the option to utilise the pick and drive. Reference Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=1BXxHSQAsyo&feature=emb_logo
There still remains to be no battle for territory, in that the A.I hardly kicks the ball to space / to touch. This in turn also reduces the chances of seeing counter attacking football which can create some of the most exciting moments in rugby.
A.I still has a profound lack of intuition around basic attacking football. i.e. they will have an overlap on the blind side and begin shifting the ball blind and then throw a pass back in, thus wasting the opportunity they once had.
Graphically the game could be improved. The close up scans of player models are fantastic, however in general play the graphics have a certain haze/fuzziness to them.
Performance, I'm not certain if it's just me but i experience regular frame drops throughout playing.
I encourage this post to be used, for any future feedback or general discussion around game play elements. Let's keep things positive where we can.
I agree with all of this. Performance is coming down to optimization. It's to be expected on release date (some may remember Gears of War 3 had horrific frame drops on release as did Mafia 3)
Good feedback thank you!
Agreed .
I have a few thoughts on about an hours worth of play also.
On the forwards play, at the very least when there is the option to send left or right and 3 runners line up to cart the ball we should be able to select which runner to pass to.
Defence:
id like to see the ability to drop the wingers back and bring the FB closer to the line or cycle through Deep/mid range/ shallow.
When you make a dominant tackle and have 2 men there trying to jackel the ball you should win the ball and not be penalised if a ruck is not formed.
sprint stamina needs to be more of a burst- at times AI defenders run along side the attacker when their could be tackled attempts.
* fwd passes need to be cleaned up/Ai intuition there are times where the 9 is at the base of the ruck and could send the ball to the fly half instead passes it to a man in the ruck.
Can I add the Try scoring dives - frog splash , the joe Rockocoko dive
the billy bunt off like in RLL
Also you need to be able to tackle in the in goal area.
Played half a dozen games so far and identified a few issues:
There still seems to be no advantage from a knock on. It's like it is a timed advantage as quite often I'll go through a couple of phases and be about to score to then get pulled back for no advantage!
I don't play with swing camera on, but on the opposition kick off it's on when they kick off, and then it swings round to my side. If it's off it should be off all the time. Quite annoying.
The camera angle for line outs is rubbish being behind the Hooker. The angle in RC3 was much better being overhead, and allowed you to better compete against the opposition by moving your players about.
The ref sounds like he's speaking through the stadium loud speaker, and there's still the issue of kit clashing between the ref and the teams.
The AI positioning of the Fullback in attack still needs worked on. They're still standing at the back doing nothing too many times.
Is there a way to turn the map off in game? Not really necessary.
Player creator is very slow. I'm on ps4 and it's taking over 5 seconds to load up tattoos, boots etc on to the player.
W
All of the in game power bars, eg kicking, scrummaging are very hazy looking and need sharpened up graphically
Some great comments here. A lot of my initial gripes have been stated already but here are the main points we've found after a handful of PvP games (to be honest, most of them were gripes from RC3 which we hoped would be fixed):
The player sounds and referee voice sound like they are being broadcast over a loudspeaker.
Game play is pretty laggy at times (sounds like this may be an "early access" issue only... I hope so!)
Winning rucks from 1st phase ball or a short crash ball is nearly impossible. The supporting forwards just stand around for too long, by which time the opponent has contested and stolen the ball. Holding onto the ball, even for a second, while you wait for support, results in an instant penalty so isn't really a viable option.
Conversions are way too easy. Even from the touchline, with strong wind there is no need to adjust the direction. If we scale up the difficulty to make kicks more challenging the lineouts become ridiculously hard. The problem is that scorelines end up pretty boring... all divisible by 7!
As mentioned earlier, there is no real pick-and-go option.
The addition of set plays is excellent and a real enhancement to attacking options. However, once the set play is selected there is a pause of a few seconds before anything happens, really slowing down the flow of the game... am I missing something here?
I will feedback some more when we've got some more games under our belts.