Here is a few of my idea that I sent to Hb studios. They said they liked them.
Punt kicking
Dummy kick, then step, is one thing that definitely needs to be inaugurated in the next installment. Get rid of the visible ball path and replace with a short straight arrow. Have a horizontal power metre below the player that fills quickly by holding X, when you release X a vertical line appears in between the start of the power metre and the point where you stopped powering the kick. Another vertical line moves from the start of the power metre towards the end. You have to press the kick button again as it passes over the middle to determine how accurate the kick is. The less power you give the kick, the slower the line moves towards the accuracy zone. This will all be very quick, like 2 seconds. The kick will go the direction you point, depending on how close you stopped to the accuracy zone. If you fail to press X the second time, the kick will slice off the side of your boot. Have the line land in the middle of the accuracy zone for the lower difficulty levels and have it on the manual kick for elite. You should be able to assign a player who isn't the flyhalf as a long field punter (different from the long punter who you select to kick from penalties), and there should be a button to get him to move into first receiver ala Chris Latham smashing it down field from a George Gregan pass.
Drop goals
The drop goals are okay they just need to be a bit slower, have further distance, and the camera angle should cut to behind the player until the ball has landed then go back to the camera angle that was being used. A new way of doing drop goals would be to include the bounce of the ball and timing of the strike, the lateral accuracy should be aimed at the posts at full power, the better the player's kicking rating is, the thinner their arrow is and further distance they will be able to kick the ball. When you initiate the drop kick, an enlarged diagram of the ball appears to the right or left of the player (depending on the player's kicking foot) around their waist. Near the bottom of the ball is a mark which is the sweet spot. There is a line at the players feet that represents the ground, and a bit further up from the ground line is another line which is the ideal striking height. You hold circle and the ball diagram drops towards the ground line, bounces, then as the sweet spot passes up through the ideal striking height, you release circle, the diagram disappears and the player then does the drop kick, or it could all be done at the same time, what ever works best. Releasing circle too early results in the ball staying low, too late makes the ball go high and sliced/hooked off to the side.
Up and unders
Need some work, get rid of the ball path and replace with a short straight arrow which can be moved laterally alot easier than the big long one and it will make the landing point a bit more unpredictable which is a good thing because no one can pin point a bomb. Tapping square once should do a small chip kick, tapping square twice does a medium high ball for you to chase, and tapping square three times does a huge torpedo bomb that can be used as an attacking kick in the opponents 22, when you do a torpedo bomb the landing marker should move around on the ground in the approximate landing area because they can be unpredictable at times. Now for jumping and contesting the ball in the air, this isn't my idea but i think it is one that will make for awesome user control and satisfaction. You put the bomb up as usual - by pressing square, but instead of having a little marker aiming at the exact point of where you want to kick it, it has a large circle, with a much smaller circle in the middle of it. The Large circle indicates the area the ball WILL land in, however, the smaller circle indicates where exactly your aiming the ball to land. Obviously, the better your kicking stats, the closer the ball will be to the small middle circle. Now, to have any participation in contesting the bomb, you must be in the large circle. This brings me to the contesting part, to attempt to jump and catch the ball, you keep tapping triangle when in the circle and the ball is in the air, the better your player's handling and jumping attributes are, the higher you shall jump and more likely you shall catch it. Being closer to the smaller circle will give you a better shot at catching it off a good kicker. This idea brings height into a factor as the taller you are, the less you have to tap triangle to jump to max height. However, in addition to this, by holding triangle, instead of contesting for the catch, the player jumps, takes a swipe and tries to bat the ball back to team mates, this would be good for short kick-offs.
Grubbers
Should bounce and change direction depending on the angle the ball was kicked on (holding L1 whilst powering a grubber will make the kick turn left as it bounces along the ground by the kicker changing the angle of the ball so it is pointing right (for those of you who are unfamiliar with the rugby ball, kicking the point into the ground will make the ball bounce the opposite direction), R1 makes it turn right). Grubbers need to be executed quicker and when tackled by a player whilst powering a grubber, you should pull the ball back in and go down, or snap at the ball with your foot resulting in an inaccurate grubber and unpredictable power, sometimes the ball can go way down field, and sometimes it can go five meters.
Soccer kick
Needs the distance to be determined by length of time you hold the button down for e.g hold it down for two seconds, the ball gets air and goes thirty meters, tap it and the ball goes ten meters rolling along the ground. They should bounce like grubbers.
Scrum half kicking
The chase needs to be more enthusiastic from scrum half kicks. There should be more kicking options for the scrum half from rucks and scrums, like a high bomb or a pick up and grubber. Kicking from the ruck needs to be quicker, more of a snap than a power up and kick.
Kick offs
Firstly get rid of the blue path of the ball and replace it with a short straight arrow to make the landing point of the ball to be determined by the height & direction you point the arrow, and the player's power & accuracy. Players jumping for the ball need surrounding forwards to lift them and form a maul. Get rid of that stupid uncontrollable mid air tackle when you go for a short high kick off. Split kick offs (forwards and backs spread across field). You should be able to lock the direction you are looking and aim the other way to catch players off guard. Low powerful kickoffs.
