Multiplat AFL 23: Launch Thread (Xbox release date TBC)

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STATE OF PLAY:
  • The game is out for Steam and PlayStation. There have been issues with Xbox release and it is unclear when the game will be available.
  • Big Ant are aware that there are playability issues & bugs at present.
  • Content has been temporarily removed from the game to identify where the issues lie.
  • This content will be re-introduced via patches in the coming days.
  • Big Ant have released a summary of what is to be reintroduced, which can be seen below.




Issues & constructive criticism are best communicated to: support.bigant.com

Michaels Twitch video with QA from Ross(BigAntStudios) from 31:40

 
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Match Recap (3.5 min quarters) Hard Difficulty


Gameplay
-Much better in terms of getting rid of the ball when being tackled, new animations when doing so
-AI tackling makes sense now, there's a leap animation instead of just teleporting
-Tackling is far better, homing tackle (for me) now works and in general I'm landing more
-I was outmarked for the first time, you can't just run back with the flight and get granted the ball, needs more precision now

-More observation but it seems like scoring/stats will be more realistic now, I only played 3 quarters and ended with 18-14 BUT brayshaw had 12 disposals, and each ruckman had 8 hitouts a piece, I can't tonight but if somebody has the time to do 7.5 min quarters please let us know how it goes

UI
-Will attach images below

-Games don't just launch you into the team song when done, does a cinematic of the ground with the stat screen that goes VERY in depth
-Crowd seemingly fixed
-Throw ins are more realistic now, as soon as the ball is in the air thee ruckmen start to fight for it​






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Initial thoughts

Nailing more tackles, plays are more contested!! Lose marking contests when 2 v 1 much more often
Game appears to be much harder (thanks a lot haha jk)

A few bizarre moments

1) Got tackled, as I was being brought down to the ground, the ball teleported from under me, to about 2 meters away on the ground. Opposition team was awarded a holding the ball free kick..... but couldn't pick up the ball for a few seconds.

2) Took a mark on the defensive 50, Tried to change direction. Aimed to the opposite wing, was going to take off running..... but player decided to ice skate on the ground along a 45 degree angle going backwards.

3) Player hand passes the ball with super human strength in the center square, it bounced (extremely quickly, almost like smacking a boundary ball in the cricket games) down the wing and out of bounds. Not that I was seriously expecting it to.... no deliberate out of bounds was called.
 

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Had an awesome passage of getting the ball free from a clearance. Only failed at the last hurdle when the player receiving the ball when stationary glitch occurred. Did 5-6 handpasses to get free from traffic, moving backwards, then out to Rich free on the wing and onto Coleman who was 7-8m clear when he received it. However he was run down by Tippa before he could get rid of the ball. Not letting me upload video to Bigfooty directly, I'll send screenshots of the rundown.

Overall I think gameplay is a lot of fun now. Yes too congested but Ross said this would be the case. Seeing dropped marks, spoils, able to tackle, feels genuinely rewarding to get out into space and hit a kick. I think the congestion issue would be 90% fixed by 2 things.

1 - Reduce the 'tackle zone', especially for AI. Getting run down when you are 2m clear and sprinting when you're kicking (and not a slow player) is unrealistic and created the congestion we're seeing.

2 - Allow quicker releases before a tackle. If i press handpass, allow the tackle animation but get rid of the ball first. Too many times the tackle animation overrides the handball or kick even when all logic says the pass should be released.

Unsure how easy these changes would be, but honestly think these and the player who receives the ball movement bug are the last bastions of significant gameplay issues. I'm sure more will pop up, but these are the only ones I see present in most plays. Game is certainly bordering on enjoyable to play now.

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Played a game on the laptop. Enjoyed it more than previous mixup.png . Still very confusing as I patiently await the Guernsey Editor. ;)
 
silverscope said:
So I'm curious as to why this game doesn't have a 2 player offline option? To play against friends/family.
Click to expand...
I was able to play with a friend locally off one ps5 account.

I had to select the teams with one controller, then start the game. Once the match has begun I was able to pause it and assign the second controller to the other team.

Hope that helps.
 
Nope.

AI still just ping pong the ball around at will, absolutely nothing you can do to defend against it
Around a dozen times the opposition AI took possession and stood still
A handful of times the ball was intercepted players would walk backwards

I'm just not seeing any improvements. I'll give it another game but it still feels like a chaotic mess with no flow or structure.
 
A20049A7-6B39-42C8-BFAA-617B3B080054.jpeg

51 minutes ago would have been the patch everyone downloaded right?……….the one circled in red………..does it look like another patch might be on the way?
 

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Ross wasn't lying when he said he would be more congested. Bit of a tacklefest so a bit hard to judge certain improvements.
But definitely an improvement.

-player movement is slightly better, but still clunky and not particularly responsive.

-playing at Marvel with the roof closed, my players were taping the ball on the ground as if it was raining instead of bouncing.

-had handballs randomly fly off 50 meters still.

-tackling has improved, but can't get close enough to tackle because the AI is too fast with the footy to get near.

-still can't spoil.

-when the ball hits the post and bounces back onto the grounds it's just play on like the old NAB cup rules.

-had the opposition teleporting literally 20m to tackle me.

-I can't run or dispose of the ball quick enough around the contest to not be tacked.

Looking forward to further improvements BA team!

On SM-S901E using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
carn tigez said:
I haven't got one tonight still
Click to expand...
It was out around 7pm, I think there is a setting in Steam to prioritise certain games for update.

silverscope said:
So I'm curious as to why this game doesn't have a 2 player offline option? To play against friends/family.
Click to expand...
Can be done on Steam easily, PS requires two controllers to be logged in before starting - or follow some of the other instructions above. This should be made easier in the PS patch tomorrow.
jdoggdrool said:
Yeah, it's really weird to set up. I played for a few hours last night with my brother, 1v1 on PS5 and it was a lot of fun.

To work around it, I just set up a one-player game with the teams we wanted to play as, then once we got into the game, got the second controller to connect and then select their team in the side select option.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Yeah, the game is most fun against a human ATM.

carn tigez said:
Had an awesome passage of getting the ball free from a clearance. Only failed at the last hurdle when the player receiving the ball when stationary glitch occurred. Did 5-6 handpasses to get free from traffic, moving backwards, then out to Rich free on the wing and onto Coleman who was 7-8m clear when he received it. However he was run down by Tippa before he could get rid of the ball. Not letting me upload video to Bigfooty directly, I'll send screenshots of the rundown.

Overall I think gameplay is a lot of fun now. Yes too congested but Ross said this would be the case. Seeing dropped marks, spoils, able to tackle, feels genuinely rewarding to get out into space and hit a kick. I think the congestion issue would be 90% fixed by 2 things.

1 - Reduce the 'tackle zone', especially for AI. Getting run down when you are 2m clear and sprinting when you're kicking (and not a slow player) is unrealistic and created the congestion we're seeing.

2 - Allow quicker releases before a tackle. If i press handpass, allow the tackle animation but get rid of the ball first. Too many times the tackle animation overrides the handball or kick even when all logic says the pass should be released.

Unsure how easy these changes would be, but honestly think these and the player who receives the ball movement bug are the last bastions of significant gameplay issues. I'm sure more will pop up, but these are the only ones I see present in most plays. Game is certainly bordering on enjoyable to play now.

View attachment 1681410
View attachment 1681412
Click to expand...

Your points 1 & 2 are exactly what is being worked on for tomorrows patch, just missed out today.
 
silverscope said:
So I'm curious as to why this game doesn't have a 2 player offline option? To play against friends/family.
Click to expand...
It does - but each person in charge of a controller needs a playstation account, I played with my kids this afternoon (3 of us on the same team).

I guess if you want to split hairs (which I bet some people will want to do) it's not really "offline" if you need to have a playstation account logged in at the time to do it, but it's still there - we really enjoyed it - especially when we played against each other Person v Person (rather than the 3 of us v AI).

Looking forward to a future where you could have full on 18 v 18 (or 22 v 22) clubs playing each other.

THAT IS THE FUTURE!

But please, where is the shirtfront button? So ready for it!
 
One thing I don't see mention of the patch notes that really concerns me is the umpiring.

These two things are happening to me multiple times every game:

  • Tackle someone with massive prior opportunity to the ground. The commentators act like it's a free kick... but the umpire does nothing, and you lose all control of your players as the guy you tackled gets up, and runs off with the ball??
  • You take a mark that's whistled and called a mark. Opposition player just runs up and tackles you anyway, holding the ball.

I've also still only managed to complete 2 online games from start to finish in the 4 days I've had the game now, as it crashes/freezes in every game.
 
That many features/improvements don't just appear over night. It really shows how screwed up the release build was and missing what was originally there. Good stuff BA, looking forward to when it drops on my PS4.
 
Ok finished my game, 3.5 minutes on hard.

Lost 7.1 to 1.1 as Brisbane vs Essendon. Figured I'd share stats to show some of the rebalancing.



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When I pressed Y to sort player disposals it took me to the team song then exited the game, apologies nothing there. But I checked at half time and it looked great - Dunkley, Merrett, Ridley, Neale all in the top 6-7.

Some further comments from me;
  • Player goal kicking remains too easy
  • Kicking is prohibitively hard due to AI tackling distance and user player control lag. Coleman/Tippa screenshot a great example, but even if already on the run unless you're 5m+ in the clear you can't trust the kick, which is why my handballs were so high.
  • Bombing inside 50 resulted in a lot of intercept marks to Essendon, that felt great.
  • AI felt like it had gotten dumber. My defenders left 2 forwards free inside 50 and there were soo many free players forward of the ball in random places for both teams. Generally it felt like each team had 3 mids sitting near half forward, but unsure if it was that.
  • No spoils from the AI - but could largely put this down to lack of kicks from me.
  • Marking felt more balanced, but also less skilful. Evolution 2 was a really good barometer for marking, with position ruling but player ability also a factor. This felt more like randomness. Jostling seems non-existent or hard to execute? Would love left stick jostling like Evo 2 had, right stick doesn't work too well if it's also spoil (not completely sure if right stick is jostle in this but think it is?)
  • Had the 60m backwards handball happen to me, but went to the opposition what's more. Obviously a bug but just as an FYI.
  • Will double down on the too congested, but honestly if kicking from clearancee was feasible and players weren't cemented to the ground when receiving handballs I think this would change completely.
  • AI sprinting still seemed intermittent.

Hopefully this helps provide some context and also feedback for the Big Ant crew when they see it. Definitely a more fun experience, but those critical bugs or imbalances mean still not fun to play lots of games for me. Definitely not far off it though!

Also would love to see the player's skill level have more impact on kick execution. Possibly it does and the game is just too buggy to notice it, but someone like Daniel Rich should just nail targets 90% of the time, while Oscar McInerney should be missing under pressure kicks by metres. If the AI also had this applied I feel like it would reduce the instances of 'perfect' type player. And also just pressure impacting kicks, someone in space should nail targets easier than someone with players all around. Obviously bug fixes and balance are first priority, but food for thought anyway.
 
I can tell things have changed (more congested), but I can't say they've improved. All the old issues remain.
 
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