AFL Evolution - Launch thread

[SugarShane]

First impressions after playing quite a few games last night, it's good.

Gameplay is still not up to AFL Live 1's standard (inb4 BugAnt fanboy), but is definitely a step up on AFL Live 2. It's fun at the core, I'll probably end up playing it quite a bit longer than AFL2. They've actually done a good job, not too sure about the "ground up" claims but it's fun.

I've been playing on medium and generally having good contests. Had Port claw back 4 goals late against me to just fall short, fought back myself against Richmond to take the win, and then got absolutely belted by Gold Coast before getting a late run on and losing by 2 or 3 goals in a real shootout.

The disputed ball does feel a lot like football, messy until you can find a free man.

Still plenty of things that need fixing Wicked Witches , hoping you guys plan to keep the game updated with fixes. Anyway, here's a list I compiled last night, hopefully in a reasonably easy to read format:

• It's so hard to kick goals on the run. Rory Sloane can't kick a goal on the full unless he's 30m out.
• CPU's short kicks are nowhere near 15m, and impossible to stop via marking or spoiling. Entirely undefendable. Short kicks in the centre that are about 5m get called marks too.
• Alternately, goal kick/clear kick does not register as a kick in forward 50. Have pressed goal kick and kicked about 20m and been not been called a mark numerous times.
• Kick outs are near impossible without playing on. 9/10 kicks will get marked by the opposition regardless of whether you try to spoil or mark.
• On the same subject, marks often seem predetermined. The amount of times I get front position, get a green icon for correct timing and still watch the ball go through my player to someone taking a diving mark 2m behind me.
• CPU goes the torp so annoyingly often.
• Free kicks are always massively lopsided. Tackle the opponent, ball spills to their teammate. I get tackled, holding or throwing the ball.
• Handball button should be different to the tap button. The game doesn't seem to register you've taken possession straight away so way to often you try to get the ball and pass immediately which instead leads to your player tapping it along the ground to an opponent.
• Using the default view, it's basically impossible to kick to space. You can either kick straight forward, to a player, or towards goals. So often I'm on the wing and want to kick to the space in the pocket instead of full forward where all the congestion is, but there's no way to aim the kick anywhere else. Even just another button like lock on that just free roams the ground would be useful to hit space.
• Been said a million times, but the names are way off. Played Port and everyone had a wrong name.
• No separation. Players are attached to their opponents like magnets.

A long list of gripes, but purely for the hope that Wicked Witches use it to improve the game. Otherwise it's a decent improvement on AFL Live 2 and definitely has some depth.

 

[LynchysMob]

I'd be the type who'd skim through it, if I'm not interested in reading criticising.

 

[Chuckie357]

One of the shoulder buttons flip the camera R2 or R1 or something

I'll look into that, thanks

 

[SugarShane]

Nah, I was playing locally versing him.

You were reading him poetry while playing?

 

[nike1]

very much enjoying it, currently playing on easy to just get my head around the game,

sometimes the handballs/kicks go a bit awry but nothing to annoying.

 

[jshster]

i got it for $57. Bargain

If you don't mind me asking... where and on what platform?

 

[TheHumanShoe]

You were reading him poetry while playing?

Whoops, I didn't realise I wrote it like that.

 

[smasha]

Needs frees seven behind plus for Richmond games to be realistic and pull out a dodgy fifty for the opposition when Richmond start getting a few goals ahead.

 

[Its Manbearpig]

I'll look into that, thanks

L1 button, just checked

 

[Chuckie357]

Has anyone mentioned that it is missing a key stat on the stats page???? Clearances

 

[Chuckie357]

L1 button, just checked

Alright I'll try that out, cheers for replying

 

[illnino]

Stayed up til 3am playing Be a Pro as Jaegar O'meara on the wing. Havent played any other game mode yet.

- Changed it to Legend difficulty pretty quickly as it was getting a little easy to impact the match.

- Rotations all seemed very good. No weird ruckman at all.

- Only noticed minor tactical changes from both teams occasionally. Gameplay is fairly 1v1 for the most part which is kinda disappointing.

- Extremely hard to mark or spoil in a contest although I hope this might have more to do with using Jaegar who's marking/spoiling stats are just average.

- Camera angles arent great. Using anything but the 'Be a Pro' camera angle was basically useless. Camera zoom didtance is too close even when set to 'far'.

- Very difficult to play in congestion. Bit of a crap shoot where I would just tap handball or evade or snap kick in case I got the ball unexpectedly.

- Advantage system after free kicks is pretty bad.

- Found it too easy to run off my man at times and take easy uncontested marks.

- Set shot Goal kicking is actually not bad when you're 40+ meters out. Power bar fills up quicker than expected.

- It's fun running past a teammate who has a mark to recieve a handball and hit someone lace out in the forward line. Felt very rewarding.

- AI taps along the ground alot and also kicks too many soccer goals off the ground. They also kick backwards to one on ones sometimes which is frustrating.

- You can't see your team tactics and there isn't any indication of how you should be playing your position. Some guidance as to what the coach wants me to do would be nice.

- Got a few knee injuries (realistic much?!) and the option to send your player to physio or hospital is nice.

- Whenever my teammates got injured or suspended, the AI replaced them with realistic replacements for the next game. Team seems to change throughout the year based on form too which is cool.

- You get benched when you are fatigued but only ever come back on at the start of a new quarter. Normally only get benched once a game if I don't go crazy with the sprint button and you have the option of watching or simming while benched.

- Replays got annoying pretty quickly, I just kept goal replays on instead. Animations very choppy in replays.

- Commentary is beyond bad. Mistaking who is in the lead happens often along with a myriad of other stuff ups including Dennis pronouncing O'meara as O'Mara and also a few other names. Richo seems to pronounce them right though, which is strange.

- AI vs AI games seem to score more highly than the games I play set to 5 min quarters. Also, after round 18, my team Hawthorn are 9th, St.Kilda and Essendon are 1st and 2nd while the Cats are last.

- Game tracks your stats through the season, not sure if they will carry on year after year yet.

- The AI was missing a few shots early which was nice but since putting the difficulty up the scorelines are getting less realistic with not enough missed shots. Games all tend to be pretty fast high scoring shoot outs which gets kinda boring somewhat.

- AI kick ins can become very predictable at times, with the most common for so far being a torp up the guts to no one in particular. Even though I know where it's going I still cant mark it though if there is an oppositiin player there. So damn hard to mark and spoil in a contest!

- Annoying that if your direct opponent takes a mark, your player will automatically run over to them to man the mark even if you are 50 meters away from him.

- There isn't a whole lot to do between games. My inbox has been basically useless and unless you have attribute points to spend on your player or want to look at stats, then you just go straight to the next match. Some news around the league would have been nice.

- Just realised I've never been moved to another position at all. Just purely playing wing. Thats a bit stupid. Throw me in the guts Clarko!

Anyway, definitely TL;DR but just throwing it out there. I'm having fun with it so far, not sure how long that will really last though. Hoping online is good and I haven't even tried a regular match playing as the whole team yet.

 

[JohnHinckleyJr]

Fan hub on the ps4 is there a trick to get it to work ??

 

[smasha]

If the game was at a level of the fifa games,then the sport would spread throughout the World.

Cmon Gil,fund Wicked Witch.

 

[Gibbsy]

Just came from 26 points down with 9 mins left to beat the Tiges by a goal in the last 20 seconds. Ultra satisfying. Marking mechanics are still broken though and it's frustrating.

 

[nahnah]

Just came from 26 points down with 9 mins left to beat the Tiges by a goal in the last 20 seconds. Ultra satisfying. Marking mechanics are still broken though and it's frustrating.

Is the marking just flat out broken or do you think you'll be able to improve with more you play it? Is there a tutorial?

 

[SugarShane]

Just came from 26 points down with 9 mins left to beat the Tiges by a goal in the last 20 seconds. Ultra satisfying. Marking mechanics are still broken though and it's frustrating.

With marking I still feel like there's an element of predetermination or randomness. At times I can go coast to coast and will turn the ball over on the forward 50 entry every single time, regardless of getting the green icon and front position etc. The system could probably do with a change, it just feels so unnatural to have to decide so early whether to mark or spoil.

That said, even though I lost, the game where I dragged a late 6 goal lead from GC back to about 2 goals did feel pretty good. With a bit more play and learning the AI patterns I'm hoping it starts to feel like AFL1 where, even if I was a few goals behind, I always felt in control of my team and like I could win if I got my shit right.

 

[aussiedude]

Things they need to improve
- move the defender back more on kick ins to allow you to play on and get more than 1 step before HTB is called.
- actually have players use the interchange without being injured
- Fix AI Goal kicking, and lower marking % for AI
- Have AI use tactics [Does any team actually play man on man anymore]
- auto player changing doesnt make sense at times, there is a player chasing 5m from the ball carries so it will change to someone 20m ahead of them


Things they need to add
- Sliders. not just for skills like AI Goal Kicking or Marking, but also for free kicks and interchange/rotations based of which third of the ground the player is in
- Player Traits. give players special traits like the real player, like Betts will have bonus points added to his goal kicking attributes when kicking goals from the boundary/tight angles. High flyers will have better marking stats in packs than 1v1. Gut runner have some on ballers get a small 2nd wind when chasing down a lose ball and sprint meter is empty, Mental Demons players like Cloke will have goal kicking stats go up or down after converting/missing multiple shots in the same game also when its real low have to controller vibrate and make it harder to aim. some defenders get higher spoil attributes if they are a 3rd man up
- Training mode to practice kick outs, Clearances and set shot goal kicking. with the ability to place the ball anywhere inside the F50 for goal kicking.
- An option to have stab kicks by double tapping X
- kickouts make a precise kickout thing. like press O to enter kickout mode and have 3 options to kick to by pressing one of the other buttons [like in NBA where you can pass the ball to anyone]. press O again to exit back to standard kickout


the audio in the game is just f**ked, the commentary is horrendous, repeated lines 10 times in a row, players called wrong names. and Richo could not physically try any less with his voice over. Crowd audio is just as bland

 

[Michaels]

do we know yet if the online 4 v 4 is based on 4 people on the 1 console vs 4 others on a different console?

or if me and 3 other mates and all play on the same team from different consoles?

 

[lmaohelp]

They could use their small budget to make great android/iphone games. But the business model of releasing shit console games and ripping the public off is better for them. They know this. They would have financial advisors to work this out. Simple.

Don't be sucked in.

You have got to be kidding me right ? Create a Android/iPhone game ? That is a one off release that will last maybe 1 - 2 years max in terms of purchases and downloads with no continual improvement and dev work.

This has been backed by the AFL for a reason, someone has told the AFL from within or externally that this is another way to market the game globally and to put some backing to it, depending on how sales and support goes, this will continue to be built and improved - ripping the public off I don't think would be in this companies business model at all. Time will tell, if there are patches released and DLC available, then you will be proved wrong.

 

[JordanWCE]

There has to be another way for hard mode to be "hard" than just making the AI have laser precision in every situation. Every ****ing tackle they're able to execute perfect handballs no matter the distance or where the teammate is.

Hard is too ****ing cheesy like that, and medium is too easy.

 

[Trixiii]

I was having buyer's remorse when I booted up the single player.

However as soon as I started playing online matches, that's when a lot things started to click and I ended up spending 4 hours last night playing against randoms.

Still need some time to practice marking, but I'm starting to get the hang of the timing.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Some further thoughts after my second spell with the game:

Positives:

• The satisfying moments are more satisfying than any AFL game yet. Going coast to coast after a kick-out feels awesome, running off your man to get a handball from a teammate is really fun - the times where you feel in control are just really satisfying.
• Set shot mechanic is excellent, possibly a touch on the hard side for set shots longer than 40-45 but I can understand why they've done that
• Linking up handball chains feels smooth and is rewarding
• Variety of marking animations (particularly i50) are better than I expected. Kicking it to a forward who takes a tumbling mark makes you feel like you've really earned the set shot.
• Tactical control does significantly change how you move the ball. While there aren't as many options as I'd like, you develop a play style that suits you very quickly.

If it seems like there's far fewer positives than negatives, just know how satisfying the best bits are. If you burst out of a pack, or side step your man and snap a goal, it is brilliant. If the game were as bad as the lopsided positive/negatives seems, I'd have turned it off by now, but the good bits are really immersive that it's worth sticking with the drawbacks.

Negatives:

• The game plays very much like 18 sets of 1v1 contests. A little less so in the midfield, but don't expect much out of your forward pockets when you're probably better off just kicking long to the 1v1 every time.
• Goals on the run are very difficult (are they actually uncontrollable?). Rarely score a goal that isn't a series of handballs over the back to the goal square, or from a set shot inside 45.
• Marking, as many have mentioned, is broken
• Kick outs as mentioned numerous times, just pump it for distance and hope for the best.
• Interchange, AI goal-kicking needs patching
• Commentary has been turned off - part of the awkward charm of AFL games is the classic Dennis Cometti "It's looking good for....the Eagles". That's fine. But the actual dialogue lines recorded in their entirety with no dependance on which team or player has the ball are just so bad. It's like they did a single take of each line and then wrapped up at the recording studio.
• Tapping the ball along when I meant to handball is becoming frustrating - had a comfortable win in a 10 minute Q JLT game but top possession getter had 15 touches for me and their had well over 30. My guys just taps it forward in the middle, have begun to bypass that and just soccer off the deck because it's the same result but 10m further away.
• Not 15 doesn't exist, the amount of times the AI kicks it right at the man on the mark and has a teammate mark it is infuriating. Can't be defended.
• Speaking of the man on the mark - why automate that the direct opponent has to run all the way over to the mark and cannot move from their spot if they can never impact the kick? The amount of times the AI has run about 1m away from the man on the mark and kicked through him is killing me.
• Not so much of a negative as a query - winning the ruck tap is decently easy, but has anyone found out a better strategy than just punch it forward? Have yet to find a player in any space after a clean tap.

Wishlist/notes:

• Let us choose who takes the kickout. I don't want Shannon Hurn defending Patton, but I don't want Will Schofield taking the kick-out either.
• Rotations would be nice. I know this comes into the interchange that needs patching, but it would be good if you could have Position 1 and Position 2 for all players. Yeo position 1 back flank, position 2 middle, he gets a few minutes here and there in the guts. Would be enjoyable.
• A bit of a deeper tactical control - might be getting a bit deep, but the ability to choose which players do what rather than the strategy for entire lines (e.g have a HBF who is constantly running forward while the other two stay back, rather than all three or nothing)
• Feeds into the 18 1v1 thing, but the ability to play zone beyond the kick-out would be much appreciated.
• There has to be a better way to display stats - how are they not all just on the same page with columns, rather than each heading has its own page. Should be a box score like a 2k game (or the AFL app, or anything). Doesn't change the game experience, just would be cleaner.
• Shut the **** up Richo, nobody wants to hear your teenage Instagram fitness goal quotes you dickhead.
• "Kicks it inside 50 towards...LeCrack....LeCrack....will need to give his feet a pep-talk for this one".

If I had to sum it up, it's a clunky game with some really good moments. The good moments are so good that you want to stick with it, and you want it to be consistently better than it is. Once they tidy up some of the surely patchable stuff I think it could go a long way to improving the experience. Unfortunately, too many instances of 'how could you have gotten x so right, but y so so wrong.'

 

[Moti]

Really wish they added the stab kick from AFL Live 1, the AI always seems to execute a perfect short pass, but I can't.

Hold down R2 you get a nice 25 metre low pass.

 

[Charliebrow 16]

People saying they'll wait for this to end up in the bargain bin are going to be waiting quite a while. Recent history with Australian niche sporting titles seems to suggest that the price hovers around the introductory price far longer than your typical AAA game.

Debating whether to pick this up after work - we'll see how I'm feeling when I have the case in my hands and I'm about to walk to the register!