Cheers for the reply C A Iversen! Glad to know its all being worked on by you guys here.
My personal suggestions would be:
1) Far improved breakdown areas. In almost every rugby game of recent times the ruck and maul mechanics and controls have been pretty awful. If you have an inferior team you just get turned over with no say in what happens, isolated or not. I would like to see some sort of balance system incorporating how the ruck is formed as a whole from how the player went into the contact, how isolated they are, the skill of the opposition tackler(s) and ruckers and the skill of your own players that are trying to retain the ball.
I have often then thought how the physical winning/retention of the ball could be implemented. WCR had the button mashing which really didn't work for me because if you had a mate who was faster at pressing X than you, you were screwed, and JLR sort of hinged on the amount of support and power of that support. The EA series doesn't really differ, it just depends on the momentum and an arbitrary animation that will just decide if you get turned over or not which never worked for me. I have thought of 2 possible mechanisms for the breakdown.
i) Have some sort of random button combo that could pop up on the screen and depending who completes theirs first will win the ruck.
ii) As this is a next gen release why not implement the analog sticks within the rucking? So for instance after the ball carrier has been tackled pushing the stick down and then around to the direction you are playing would perform a drive over the tackle area to push away opposition players. A straight push of the stick in the way you are playing would simply bridge over the ball to seal it off. Pushing away from the way you are playing would remove players from the ruck. The skill would come in deciding when to seal off and when to drive over because if you seal when the other team are driving you would get simply pushed off the ball. You could only seal when you are clearly first to the ball and have numbers or when you have driven the opposition away from the ruck. The defensive team would have to press a button to roll away as the tackler, and likewise the offensive to release/present the ball. The ruck area would then play a much bigger part of the game (as it should be, and is in real life) as holding onto the tackler/ball for a split second could be the difference between turning over the ball and retaining possession when isolated.
Potentially both of these could be implemented as when I have looked through this thread many people have been saying they would like the game to be accessible to anyone and easy to pick-up-and-play. I personally would prefer a game that is hard to master and have that depth that will supply longevity for the experience rugby player. In the options menu if you are an amatuer or playing for a bit of fun you could simply select the button combo system. Experienced players could select the stick system allowing for a much more thoughful and tactical game.
2) Far better running/attacking system In the most recent EA rugby games the running has been ok, though it can get very boring when the same gap always opens up in the midfield allowing for easy tries again and again. I think there needs to be a total overhaul of the way attacks are constructed (such as set plays, as they pretty much useless in the last games) and the way you can use players specific traits in attack.
EA need to do away with the 'star player' system, its far too arcade and makes some players almost god like. For instance Wilkinson should be good at kicking and passing but not very good at running. Basteraud on the other hand would be very hard to tackle and clearly a physical presence, but his kicking far worse than a seasoned fly half. Rugby Challenge 2006 managed to capture the difference between a lumbering forward and a slick back quite well (for a bad game) and meant that trying something a player would not usually do, such as a side step from a prop, would more than likely be close to inneffective, whereas a shoulder charge would not, and vice versa.
I think there should be a lot more emphasis on the scrum half and fly half also. They are the pivots in attack and are where the whole play will be decided. I would like to see a sort of american football style set play system where a play will be set by the fly half (say a simple dummy scissors pop) and instead of the player setting the play and then being simply taken along with the animation you should control the fly half so you have to run the correct line with him across the switching reciever and the pop to the 2nd reciever. However it should be your choice what you do and if you want to do the switch when you are running across by simply pressing pass you will operate the switch and assume control of the 1st reciever. Likewise after selecting the set play if you see a gap in the defence you could just run straight with the fly half and ignore the set play to exploit it. The flyhalf is the the 'quarterback' who runs the whole play. This could mean like in Fifa 10 you could set running routes from players in the back line and create your own set plays.
The running move in the previous games are awful too; just scripted animations which if pulled off at the right time render your players paralysed far more akin to a game like fifa street than rugby. If anyone has played the new Madden game then I think a running mechanic should be implemented similar to that. Though it is not perfect the players arch and lean as they run and feel heavy meaning they cannot just turn on a sixpence at full speed as in previous EA rugby ***les. The special moves should also be physics based not animation timing based. The moves should be handoff (L+R), charge, sidestep (L+R), hitch kick (if you're wondering what that is look at Ryder in the Fiji 7s), dummy (pass + kick) and possibly spin.
Passing needs to be improved and definately offloads. I would like to see something like JLR bought back where you hold the pass button before the tackle and release it when in the tackle to execute it.
3) Improve career mode and team set up Career mode is simple really, just make it pretty much the same as Fifa 10 but for a rugby game. Obviously its not perfect but it is pretty damn good.
For the team set up there should be plentyful options as to how to set the team up - from the lineup, captain and kickers etc to things like what set plays will be assigned. The slider system that is in Fifa 10 is great and should be used to change things such as how often you would like forwards or backs to take 1st phase ball, what type of play you want to opt for (kicking, forwards, inside runners off 10/12, wide play) and how often to adopt this and in what areas of the pitch, how agressive you are in defence and how quick you would like ball from the scrum half.
These are so well implemented in Fifa and work so well because it varies completely with the team and formation you are playing. The sliders should all be adjusted depending on players your team has. This would allow for so much more depth in the game as each player will set up a different style and would be brilliant to see online.
4) Online play Pretty much speaks for itself.
5) Improve defence Tackling should be like it is in JLR and Rugby Challenge 2006 with a normal tackle button which would have a higher success rate (especially if big v small) and a smash tackle which would have a lower success rate but a large chance of forcing a turnover if successful. Obviously again if used by small v big you would just be bounced off.
In the defensive line i think there should be the formations as there are rugby 06/08 but with the shoulder buttons you should be able to initiate either blitz or drift defence depending on the opposition play, and the harder you hold it down the more aggressive/fast the defence will be and if you let go the defence will just approach normally. If you get it wrong then you can get caught out wide (blitz) or hit with an inside runner (drift) so you should judge in accordingly as in real life.
Instead of selecting one player and contolling them for the whole defence or frantically trying to select to the closest defender the CPU should just automatically follow the ball meaning you always have the closest player selected.
6) Accurate player stats and DEVELOPMENT The player stats on 08 were abysmal. You just have to look at games such as Fifa, PES and Madden to see what stats
should be like. Also young players should develop and likewise older players depreciate as in games such as Fifa and PES which have implemented this very well.
7) Goal kicking I think kicking kings on BBC (
here) would be awesome.
I know I have only listed 7 there but theres probably more like 20 suggestions in there! Sorry its sooooo long but thats how frustrating Rugby 08 was! I would jsut love for the developers to spend less time on graphics, stadia and kits and bring out a good, solid rugby game that can be built on in subsequent years. When Fifa went to next gen Fifa 08 was a good game. Now two additions later it is superb and PES has pretty much fallen by the wayside. C'mon HB don't let us down!
