Public Test Arena : Patch note

[EkoSoftware]

How to access public_test_arena branch : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1229485944

1.4 Version is live, here are the changes available on the Public Test Arena branch from the 1.4 version

Openplay :

• Sprinting when no stamina left is faster
  
• Tackle distances slightly reduced
  
• Players now have a "blind angle" behind them where they cannot tackle
  
• AI now always kicks the ball out if it is winning when time is up
  
• User-controlled players in defense are now facing the opponents when running (whenever possible)
  
• Fix possible bug where no one caught the ball in lineout
  
• AI now performs more offloads
  
• Improved AI's opponents dodging
  
• Players now reposition faster between phases, causing less defensive gaps after a fast played penalty
  
• Reduced time for AI to choose an action after rucks
  
• Faster free ball pickup
  
• Simplified the inputs for sidestepping :
  
  • A simple left-flick or right-flick toward the way you want to go initiate a sidestep.
    
  • Fending is done by holding RS in the wanted fend direction (360 dodge input for back players is unchanged)

Menu / HUD :

• Added a progress bar on challenges displayed during a match
  
• Player recruitment bug fix
  
• Clearer stamina display in management and training menus

Misc :

• Fixed camera being stuck when playing fast after the hands in the ruck foul
  
• Changed the look of the following players : Cheslin Kolbe, Tomos Williams, Thibauld Suchier, Damien Chouly
  
• Changed experience and rewards formula (lowered required XP with faster levelup on low levels, but better rewards on higher levels)

[VeleN]

Hi team ! Thanks for this update, i'm going to try this :) i have a simple question how i can mod this game ? do you have some tutorials or ?

Are the offsides (feet) going to be corrected?

Thanks.

[EkoSoftware]

Hi Velen,

There is currently no official way to mod the game, sorry : (

And the offsides should be much better on the public test arena branch.

[HisNobleGreal]

Hey Eko,

Thanks for the effort in supporting this game. I'm looking forward to seeing what improvements you can make going forward.

So I got a chance to play the test patch, and holy crap this feels so much better! On Pro difficulty, the game was actually...difficult! I had tries scored against me and even lost a few matches. It was good fun.

Here are some initial notes (again, on Pro difficulty):

Rucks

• Rucks are much better--way harder to win, but not impossible.
  
• I did notice players far away from the ruck warping to it at ungodly speed (usually the second nearest player when the AI calls for 2-players to the ruck).
  
• Isolated ball-carriers don't always loose possession in a 2-on-1 ruck. I need to play more to really solidify this observation, but that situation seems like it should be a guaranteed steal for the defense. There's probably variables at play, though.
  
• Speaking of, what's the ideal combination of variables to win a ruck on defense? Players with high Jackal rating, a strong right-stick tackle, an isolated ball-carrier, and a 2-man add to the ruck?

Referee

• High tackles and yellow cards are, indeed more rare. Cool cool.
  
• I got many hands in the ruck penalties called on me, which is fair since I was still mashing the button when I didn't need to.
  
• The Jackal function is much less useful now. Before, two presses of the button would get me the ball, no problem (which is, in fact, a problem...for gameplay). Now careful usage of it might win me one or two rucks during a game. I'd much rather have it behave how it is now than before, but perhaps consider a scenario in which the player gets a higher percentage win chance with a Jackal, like on an isolated ball-carrier. On the other hand, you shouldn't lose the ball every time just because you passed it out to your winger. Balancing is hard.

AI

• Much less kicking from the AI, and more contextual awareness on their part. However, they:
  
  • kicked out on the full from about midfield two or three times
    
  • kept the ball in play after expired time when they were in the lead one out of two times this situation occurred (you'd figure they'd kick it out 100% of the time)
    
  • and ran it out from inside their 22 more often than not (this is probably in the Possession play style, but very few teams would actually do this, right?....I'm on the fence about it. I can see a one out runner to get a better angle on a box kick. I can also see a team like Japan running it out from their own try line).
• Ball-carriers still pretty much just run straight, even though they are more varied in what they do (kick, sidestep, dummy, etc.).

My Squad

• Look at you guys adding more uniform options all sneakily over there. :)

Okay, so now for other areas of the game that I would love to see addressed:

Menus/UI/Data

• We need to be able to name our My Squad teams. Customizing my team uniform and ball had me so invested. I'd like to see that continue by being able to customize the team name.
  
• Make team management easier in League and Solo by allowing us to save and apply different squad configurations. (Please keep stamina loss as-is. I don't want the solution to be players lose less stamina from match to match.)
  
• After a booster pack opening, don't immediately close the screen. I get like 3 seconds to see who I pulled before it's gone. Let me close the screen on my own time. An additional filter for most recent cards would be appreciated in card management, also.
  
• Explain My Squad chemistry. I assume it's Team/Nationality/Position like FIFA, but you don't want to make your users just assume things, right?
  
• Add headers to the World Standings table in Solo.
  
• Match statistics, please!!! I'd love some team and individual match data, which you can then use to determine the Man of the Match. You can then roll that in to League and Solo modes for accumulative stats over the season. It'd be so awesome.

In-game Presentation

• I love that you guys added in the tunnel pre-walkout stuff.
  
• But there's a lack of excitement and build-up throughout the match. Here's what you need:
  
  • Public announcer audio. All stadiums have this, and it would fill up the awkward dead space after the commentary goes dead while the players run onto the field and the rosters get shown, as well as after a try.
    
  • Intro and outro music leading into and out of the match, underneath the commentary.
    
  • Better post-try stadium music. Those drums don't quite cut it.
    
  • On-field player shouts during the match. Rugby is an extremely verbal sport, and it would add to the atmosphere if you represented this.
• I'd also like an in-stadium horn sound or something to let me know 40 and 80 minutes are up. I don't know how many times I look up after phase play to see that time has expired without my knowledge.
  
• Please change time clock from minutes to minutes-seconds.

Gameplay

• Player movement
  
  • In my opinion, this is the biggest detriment to this game right now. The player positioning is on point. The tactics are on point. The set plays are mostly on point. The lineouts, scrums, and rucks are the best in any rugby game I've played. But it doesn't feel like you control rugby players. It feels like you control slow-turning ships and mechanical robots, and that's such a shame considering how far the gameplay has come.
    
  • Please add a sprinting animation. Please? If I could get you excited about just one thing, this would be the thing. Imagine the immediate impact a well-done, athletic sprint animation would have on the feel of the game! Please, please, please add an athletic sprinting animation. Right now it's a sped-up jog, and it's super jarring. It just doesn't cut it.
    
  • Changing direction is laborious. If you hold sprint and change direction, it's like a ship slowly listing. The AI catches a kick 10 meters away from the sideline on a run and ends up going into touch because they can't change direction. If you use sprint in bursts to change direction, even with a winger, you're still never going to avoid the defense. Player movement just isn't responsive. You then have to rely on ball-carrier moves that have their own problems.
    
  • Please add strafing animations. If i'm on defense, I want to move laterally, in an athletic stance, to fill the space and prepare for ball-carrier movement. You'll see that players on both sides of the ball move laterally into position between phases, as well.
    
  • Adding sprint and strafe animations, and easing up on the player turn radius, would go a long way towards improving the feel of controlling the players.
• Ball-carrier moves
  
  • Side-steps: I'd change the controls for sidesteps from left-right or right-left on the right stick to just a simple left-flick or right-flick toward the way you want to go. I get how the current control is trying to replicate faking going one way and then going another, but for ease of control and responsiveness, i'd simplify to directional flicks.
    
  • Dummies: I like this addition. What's the optimal range in which to pull this off, though? I get tackled 80% of the time trying to do this.
    
  • Hand-offs: It's weird to have a winger at full sprint stop dead in his tracks to do a hand-off animation. You need a hand-off animation at pace, where the ball-carrier continues their momentum.
    
  • This game needs a one-cut animation. Where the side-step animation stops the momentum of the ball-carrier completely to go side-to-side, the one-cut is a simple step that stems from planting a lead foot in one direction and then bursting diagonally in the opposite direction.Watch any ball-carrier in a rugby match, and you'll see this to different degrees.
    
  • You also need a bump-off animation for scenarios where you have a strong ball-carrier at full pace crash head on into opposition.
    
  • I want to live the fantasy of running strong like Tadgh Furlong or Hamish Watson, bumping people 5 yards back like Josua Tuisova or Manu Tualagi, and juking people out of their shoes like Cheslin Kolbe or Santiago Cordero. I want to feel that dynamism and explosive power. I want opportunity for individual brilliance in the game, to struggle and fight. That's the fantasy I want you to capture and provide.

If you read this far, thanks for taking the time. I'm excited to see what Rugby 20 and beyond can become. You have the broad strokes down, but it's the attention to detail in every aspect of your game experience that's going to help you compete against Rugby Challenge 4.

Good luck!

[osiris.malbranque]

Hi,

Here is a complete test of your patch by a Rugby 20 player (video language is French) : https://youtu.be/Emg1glVvNc4

[Tjoppie]

Hi Guys.

Firstly I just want to commend you for a very fun game. Very close to the best Rugby game out there.

Here is my feedback and I would love to hear what your response is to these improvement ideas and fixes etc. Please note I am not a professional in giving feedback, it is just my opinion but I believe this can improve the game allot, especially for someone that already likes the game.

Unrealistic things that happen:
Every time I punt down field past the half way line, the AI never runs back they just punt down field.
When the Ai has the ball they never do any special moves, set plays or kicks and most of the time just run straight ahead.
Player stamina is very unrealistic. I get what you want to do with this but a player cannot be on 18 stamina at half time and play for "Ireland". I really hope you guys make drastic changes to this or rather remove it completely. Maybe make the min stamina for any player at half time at least 50% as you only get 7 reserves and in real life a player can still run at full pace after 70 min especially backline players.....

Improvement ideas:
Insert some sort of in game editor for players, player stats and teams. We all want to adjust our teams and maybe create players so that the game lasts longer when we can make players for the next season or just transfer some players.
Make transferring players a reality.
Please complete all the player profile photos, as all the players in the game are supposed to be licensed.
bring in a slider system into the game that we can change game settings like, game speed, tackle success, offload success etc. the current game feels very fast paced. Rugby is not this fast paced. it makes it almost impossible to do set plays and so on.
Increase player pass stats, there is not one player in the world especially in pro rugby that has a pass stat of less than 60 I believe.

Just want to thank you for taking the time to read all of this and I believe that everyone can appreciate that you are still looking at ways to improve the game.

Keep up the good work and let me know what you think of my suggestions Thanks.

Kind regards

[EkoSoftware]

Thanks a lot for all the feedbacks!
Our goal is to collect everything and know your feeling about the latest changes and improvements.

It helps to know if we are going in the right direction and will definitely guide us on short and long term development.

Thank you again : )

[osiris.malbranque]

Hello everyone !

I give you a quick feedback after changes (mainly about AI) : the AI shows more discipline (very good), scores more, but I always have the impression that victory between same-level teams are too much easy. I have run a Stade Toulousain (85) - Saracens F.C. (86) match, won 28-21 in Pro difficulty. 2 of my 4 tries were scored after a gap from the uncovered ruck edges. My scrum half (Antoine Dupont, very quick and powerful) could run through the right side of the ruck, without opposition. At the best level, AI should ensure the blindside is always covered by at least one player, if the scrum half decides to carry himself the ball there.

Also, I rarely felt overwhelmed when I was defending. I expect quicker decisions from AI, at the best level, after each ruck. In Pro dificulty, the AI average decision-making time is between 3 and 4s between EACH phase (=ruck) ! It's a plenty of time for my defence, to regenerate the line and to choose the closest player of the ball carrier. So my opponents score when there is a turnover (pretty rare now), or when I do some mistakes (on my last match, 14 points conceded came from incorrect kickoffs).

You could create an International difficulty level, with exactly the same settings but the AI decision-making time (on a 2s basis after each ruck, which could be adjusted by teams rates, from 1,5s for the best ones to 2,5s for the weakest ones). This would offer an interesting challenge to players who want to compete against a very solid offense.

[EkoSoftware]

Thank you for the feedbacks, the 1.4 version is now live for all players.

A new beta version has been uploaded on Public Test Arena branch.

The change list, at the top of this thread, has been updated.

[Tjoppie]

Hi Eko,

After the update, for some reason every time I go into the My Squad then Manage options the game crashes. Please help asap. Thank you.

[Pyrooo]

Really enjoying the game more after each patch and I really appreciate the ongoing support. This is my favourite rugby game of all time now and I'll definitely adjust my review as more patches come out to reflect this. Here's my immediate feedback:

What I like

- I find it easier to score in many different ways against the AI. I've naturally added more to my own game in order to compete with the more difficult AI which makes scoring much more satisfying than trying to cheese it by always passing to the winger.
- The AI can actually score against me now, especially the ones that offload and pick and go more.
- The small UI updates here and there.
- Rucks feel much more fair but too consistent at times. It's easy to win a ruck with 5 opposition players around it but difficult to win one against a winger on his own.
- Sprinting and tackling feels more satisfying and I've scored more breakaway tries and inside passes against the opposition.
- I actually lost a match against a team much better than me! It was a genuine struggle.
- Advantage works a lot better now. Less yellow cards too now!
- The game feels much quicker and more fluid altogether!

Possible Improvements

AI
- It's too easy to win a kicking battle as the AI eventually kicks the ball straight into touch on the full from just outside of their 22. Aiming to get them to kick the ball to bounce first before going out would fix this. I don't want them to have pinpoint accuracy every time and a few mistakes are good and make the game feel more fair and realistic, but this is a constant issue.
- The defensive line for a 5-metre scrum is too far back and it means I can score from a 5-metre scrum with my Number 8 every time. The defensive line should be on the try line.
- I often see the opposition fullback running across behind their own try line to intercept my player, meaning I get to the line first and it's an easy try. They should probably try and stay in front of their own line when it's that close.
- There's no urgency to tackle a player that's already over the try line to make the conversion harder meaning 9 times out of 10 I can make it between the posts before I dot the ball down for an easy conversion. Having a "held up" possibility when tackled over the line would help to combat this too and I'd be more willing to dot the ball down knowing it's a guaranteed try than risk it being held up.
- Awareness of space in front: In my last game the AI player has had 20 metres of empty field ahead of him after a couple of offloads but chooses to kick. Recognition of no players nearby to decide whether to kick or run would make them more challenging.
- In my last game I beat France 38 - 0 by playing a territory based kicking game as a lowly 73 rated team. The AI kicking decisions and accuracy needs to improve otherwise I'm going to walk all over defenses with this tactic.


Gameplay
- Scrums are quite difficult for me at the moment because of the advantage the AI gets as soon as it starts. Only after the ball is put in, the indicators show up. By the time I've seen my indicator, the AI has already been on it for a second or two and their momentum beats me every time. The indicator showing up a second before going live would fix this.
- The option to move a forward into the #9 position (similar to how you move a kicker behind the ruck) would be really great for pick and gos in front of the line.
- I still get the bug where players don't catch the ball in the lineouts.
- I had a glitch where the opposition scrum half never took the ball out of the ruck. I think the countdown that the player has should apply for the AI too as it meant the match could never end and I had to quit out.

Rugby Laws
- If a player kicks the ball and another player charges it down, it shouldn't be a knock-on. The game is calling knock-ons for it though.
- The in-game offside law stops paying attention once the ball is out of the ruck. I've had moments where there have been players 10 meters offside making an easy tackle on opposition.
- The offside rule doesn't apply for kicks either. Players in front of the kicker should retreat behind an onside player before they can compete for the ball.

Audio
- Small glitch I noticed where the music plays at full volume for a second when you enter the game before turning back down to the setting you chose.
- The commentary team's player announcement is wrong. It seems like they announce the last player with possession no matter what: "Kilcoyne was tackled by... Kilcoyne!" for example.

Others
- The animation for touching the ball down (pouncing on a loose kick) is very awkward.
- In Solo I wouldn't mind the option to train players all the way up to 100 (with diminishing returns) instead of the limit of 10. I'd like to make my squad with my favourite players, not just the best one, and it would be fun to do that over time and still be competitive. Especially useful for the characters where I personally disagree on their ratings (E.g. Tigers Players: Ford 71, Tuilagi 68, Veainu 56, Genge 66, ). I don't want to reach a team filled only with Saracens, Leinster and Munster players.
- Player Scores still don't fully reflect their skill level.
- Action replays and match statistics would be a great addition once the gameplay side of things is more consistent.
- The game has crashed once or twice at the end of a match. I got my decrease to player stamina but not the XP and SP rewards.
- I still can't rename my custom team.

Also some my feedback post from here is still valid: https://steamcommunity.com/app/846730/eventcomments/1745643665625011340

[EkoSoftware]

Originally posted by Tjoppie:

Hi Eko,

After the update, for some reason every time I go into the My Squad then Manage options the game crashes. Please help asap. Thank you.

Hello,
Sorry for the inconvenience. There was indeed a bug. We’ve corrected it and updated the version on public_test_arena.

Thank you for your feedback.

[acmaarschalkjr]

Hi, loving the game. Two early comments:

Interceptions: Sometime the tackle button is too responsive when an intercept takes place, resulting in a grubber kick. Maybe slow mo when an interception takes place?

I'm not getting any yellow cards for repeated hands in rucks offences? Maybe a fix to this.

Thanks for this game. I love the commitment.

[HisNobleGreal]

Hey Eko,

I have to say again how great it is that you guys are continuing to improve the game based on user feedback! I think the community really appreciates it; I know I do.

That's probably why this 1.4 version is by far the best version I've played. The following notes are based on playing on Pro with the TV/Side camera view:

The Good

• The speed and flow of the game is perfect. The increased speed to stamina-depleted characters really did the trick. Every player feels as fast as they should be.
  
• Attacking play has never been better: I get plenty of support runners that keep up with me at a sprint, and I love when the whole line moves in attack. It's great!
  
• Side-steps feel like they should with the simplified control. It's way more responsive and useful to break the opponent line with or threaten with my winger in open space. Awesome.
  
• The AI, though still needing work, plays much more varied and threatening, taking different running angles with the ball.
  
• Like I said before, this game has the best set-pieces and rucking dynamics of any rugby game. Just want to re-iterate this point, even though it doesn't pertain to patch changes. Job well done :)

Possible Improvements

AI Stamina Management

• In League and Solo modes, the AI fields teams that are already exhausted to begin the match. They start sending in their replacements five minutes in. Stamina is such a huge part of this game (and rightfully so) that facing a superior team with exhausted players becomes a 40-0 massacre.
  
• Can you look at the AI player rotation logic and improve how they manage their players from match to match?

Defensive Gameplay

• User-controlled defenders facing opponents when running caused me a lot of problems in defense the way it's been implemented. I'm stuck facing a kicker, running backward as the ball sails over my head, and I can't do anything about it. Also, my pursuit angles get messed up, and it's like I'm fighting against an invisible force trying to get my defender to an attacker that's at an odd angle.
  Instead of a constant, hard-coded thing, can you bind this new ability to holding down the left-trigger so that I can choose when to put my defender in this mode and when not to? Ideally it would work like FIFA's or Madden's defensive jockey or strafe (i.e. when jockeying, your player trades speed for being able to lock on to an attacker and be more effective in defense). Maybe it's harder for an attacker to pull off a side-step against a good defender who is jockeying?
  
• For me, the most immersion-breaking element of on-field play right now is how the opponent AI with the ball will sometimes get stuck running in place against my AI defenders for the second or two it takes me to press the tackle button. I know this is the result of how the tackle system is dependent on the user to manually make all the tackles, and don't get me wrong, I rather like the system. Eight times out of ten I'm making seamless tackles with good timing. But there should probably be more intelligence from the offensive AI to sidestep or get around the AI defender if no tackle is being attempted.

Offensive Gameplay

• As Pyrooo mentioned, the offensive AI will make some seriously questionable kicking decisions. A lot of the time they'll kick the ball out on the full from midfield. This eases up any kind of pressure they were putting on me, and it doesn't seem like a realistic mistake to make so frequently.
  
• Sometimes my players will get into position following a successful ruck, then, when I pass the ball out of the ruck, they'll scramble to new positions so that who I thought I was passing the ball to is now on the opposite side of the field, and the ball goes to someone else. This issue just recently cropped up. I'm usually running some kind of 3-3-1 pod formation, but I haven't been able to pin down the exact circumstances under which this occurs.
  
• I feel like no player should be able to offload the ball halfway across the pitch. I encountered a situation where my center offloaded the ball to my winger by the touch line from about the goal post following a tackle. It was a laser pass, too. I scored a try off of it and felt dirty. I rather would have had the attempted offload go to ground in that situation to punish me for a dumb decision instead of being rewarded with a try. Otherwise, I think the passing system is great at punishing poor decisions and rewarding good ones.
  
• Also as Pyrooo mentioned, I think it'd be cool to have pick-and-go options for the forwards near the opponent's try line. You'll see the 9 back off from the rucks and let the forwards take the ball with support.
  
• It would be cool to have a bomb option to the box kick. Watching some Premiership rugby over the weekend, the 9 will either use the kick from a ruck to clear to touch or bomb it up high for a contestable kick, giving their winger or whomever a chance to chase the kick and possibly come down with it. The only trajectory we have available for a box kick right now is one that is too low to make a contestable kicks possible unless you were trying to do a cross-field kick.
  
• It'd also be cool if it were possible to assign a tactic to your 15 where they would come up to the line on the outside channels and be part of an attack. I know there's a set play or two that involve the 15 (I just scored a game-winning try using the Rangy 15 set play and it was awesome--thank you Blair Kinghorn), but it'd be cool if it were a constant direction that they would come up to the line if an attack was headed their way. I keep on seeing this in the Six Nations and again in the Premiership. It'd be a high risk/high reward tactic since you'd leave the field wide open for a counter-attack.
  
• It'd be nice to have some kind of indication that lets me know if an offload is going to be successful or not. Right now, you have to just wait and see after the tackle animation if you're going to get the ball off. Not a big priority, though.

UI/Menu

• Post-match statistics. Big priority :)
  
• Number of tries made per side on the in-game score UI element.
  
• Include names of scorers for simulations.
  
• Team Scrum and Lineout score totals on the Team Management UI. I really like how the individual player scrum and lineout scores have a big impact in-game. It'd be nice to see how my roster choices affect my overall set-piece scores.

Misc.

• Better rewards for winning League championships. Receiving a basic player pack and few thousand more SP for winning the league is a bit of a let down. How about at least an epic player pack, as well as a team pack for who you won the league with?
  
• Why is the Camera Distance setting locked in TV/Side view?
  
• Can you set the day/night and weather settings to random or something for League and Solo play? Right now the matches reflect the setting I have in Options. Example: every match takes place in Day Rain if I've chosen that setting.
  
• Or better yet, include a "Random" day/night/weather setting in the Options.

Bugs

• When a substitution is made following a penalty, the camera gets stuck on the incoming player (who just kind of stands there) and the penalty options UI doesn't appear on the screen.
  
• In the previous version, I crashed twice following pack openings. So far so good, on this version.
  
• Announcer will say the name of the last player to have the ball when referring to the next action. Example: I get tackled as Charlie Sharples, then box-kick with Willie Hienz--the announcer will say Sharples performed the box kick.
  
• Opening commentary frequently cuts out during the pre-game tunnel scene. I often won't get commentary back until a set-piece occurs or until the next half.

I still stand by my comments on in-game presentation and player movement from my earlier post, but I understand that you'll leave some things for the next full iteration of the game.

Thanks again, Eko.

[Pyrooo]

Just as an update - the game is relatively unplayable due to this glitch I keep seeing:

1. The AI gets possession in a ruck or keeps possession after a maul.
2. Sometimes the commentary team mention that the AI has done something (e.g. kick)
3. The AI doesn't do anything. The game is still in "ruck mode" with the offside line but nothing happens.

This can happen at any time during a match and has happened a total of 5 times now. The AI will not move, even after half time or full time has come. I can't influence it at all - even if I go offside the AI gets advantage but still doesn't move.

The only way is to alt-f4 (as often it won't let me quite the match). When I do all of my players' stamina is set to what it was when I exited the game/match but I have to replay the match in total.

This could be fixed with a "use it!" rule that will penalise the AI for time-wasting as a containment for this glitch.

Other glitches:
- Game freezes on post-match after showing how many CR and XP I have obtained.
- Game crashes to desktop on post-match after showing how many CR and XP I have obtained.

- I sometimes get possession on the line-out for a ball that I've kicked out.

[kl0buerste]

Please let me at least change players if they are injured ... Why cant i do that?