While there are alot of great suggestions in the other thread, i felt that most of them were suggestions for an ideal world where the HB has a much larger budget.
Those suggestions are very valuable, but i felt another thread was needed for suggestions that can realistically be accomplished with a small budget. The type of changes that could have been made on the Rugby 08 game.
My Ideas
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A Stats and Attribute Editor- This is a must, in every game so far there have been problems with players names getting players' country wrong or their physical statistics sometimes even skintone. Then there is the huge problem of opinion in players attributes, Nick Evans being rated as as 60 speed used to get on my nerves to no end. So, if these mistakes are going to be made, why not just include an editor and let us fix your mistakes ourselves? i wouldnt mind at all. Also if a customer buys the game and thinks that Chris King is massively underrated, whats the harm in letting them boost his stats?
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The default veiw should be front on - Rugby cant be played with a side on view like in FIFA. In football, its very important to see whats happening the length on the pitch. In rugby, length doesnt really matter. the importance is all in the width, spotting gaps in the line.
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The ablitity to select the weather - In the previous rugby games, when it starts raining, players slow down to a crawl after 10 metres (This is a gripe in itself, but ohwell.). The big problem with this is that it is then impossible to play an enjoyable game of running rugby if the weather is bad, and at the home grounds of most European teams the weather is ALWAYS bad. I therefore find myself avoiding choosing european teams in world league because i want to run with the ball. Just let us choose to play on a sunny day.
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Change the World League players! - I can not express in words how sick i am of the likes of Heffler, Berti and Katalau. enough of these guys.
Why not just pool all the worst players in the game that arent already involved in the world league into a list of free agents. So the list would be full of the Russian, Japanese, Fijian internationals ect, but exclude any players that are over 55 or 60overall or something. Then at the start of the world league you get to select your side from this list of players. Then, not only is there an element of skill in a persons squad selection, but the players in the team would all be real people! I would also sugget putting a cap on the combined overall value of the team at initial selection so you cant just choose all of the highest rated players.
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Improve the create player system - It is impossible to make a created player that doesnt look completely ridiculous. The only face you can make looks completely deformed. There is already a huge array of faces available in the game, why cant you just make these faces available for us to use? Similarly, why is there an impressive range of mullets available in create a player, but a tiny selection of actual hairstyles? just let us have hairstyles and faces that dont look out of place.
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Get rid of the star player system - The star player system just doesnt fit. Not only is it very subjective (Australias 6 star players to South Africas 3?) but it goes against the whole essence of rugby. Its all about teamwork and everyone doing their part. Yet somehow there is some bloke with a star on his head that is more important than everybody else. Also, no star players in the tight 5? I doubt England would have won the world cup without Martin Johnson, and the same for South Africa and Matfield and Smit.
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Players play out of Position in Rugby all the time! - Currently, if you play a player out of position, they become absolutly terrible. They are unable to catch a ball. This is just wrong.
If you want your winger to play at flyhalf, the thing that discourages you should be the fact that his passing kicking and positioning isnt good enough, not that he might forget how to catch. If his passing, kicking and positioning is good enough, then he should play well there. Fifa uses that type of system and it serves them well.
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Morale and form are completely meaningless - I realise that these are present in the rugby games, but currently they do absolutly nothing. It would be nice if they could do something
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Record more commentry - There is simply not enough commentry. It gets very old, very quickly. Every starting player in the top international teams and club sides should have a couple of sentances recorded about them.
Just little things like the school the went to and if any other famous players came from that school. If they are well known for exploits in another team you could mention that, if they have relitives that play or just interesting things like Aaron Crudens overcoming cancer or Isa Nacewas eligibilty concerns. That way every time you play another team you would learn a little fact about a couple of their players and it would be a break from the same old stuff.
