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Making Rugby 08 Harder

M

mj44

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While I've only played a couple of games and am still getting used to the controls on a pc gamepad, some people have said the game is too easy. Here are some house rules and settings that might make it more challening:

House rules:

1. Don't use lightening fast backs. Speed makes a back better than they really are in this game, partly because the AI doesn't defend properly. It gives the players a little more room than they might have in real life.

2. When you make a break don't just do the easy "grubber, recover and score" tactic. Most of the time the player will try to beat that last defender or look for the pass.

3. Don't kick to the opposite touchline when you're facing sideways. When you kick facing sideways it gives the ball a nice long bounce, and doing this to the opposite touchline will see a 22 to 22 type kick. It is an exploit and a cheap tactic.

4. Don't contantly use the backline diagonal run. It is an exploit and in real life a player won't know what is going to happen.

5. Don't overuse dive tackles, especially when the opposing player is running at you. In real life players don't dive into each other. Dive tackling to stop a break is obviously ok, and it doesn't seem to cover as much ground as in '06. Might just be me though.

6. Don't just load up a team with star players in world league. It seems sexy to create a team full of your favourite players but come on, of course it's going to make the game much easier.

7. When kicking for touch, don't aim the kick just inside the sideline when you knock the defence will run it out. This is really cheap ;)

8. Maybe choose a kicker who is only 'ok' at conversions (if you're good at conversions yourself). Eg in world league you might only ever use a guy with 70 goalkicking skill.

I think that is about it for house rules, so onto Settings

1. Simulation offloads. There will be more dropped ball so it will make it a little harder.

2. Choose higher stamina, injury and knock on settings. Stamina will force you to use the bench and will make it harder to finish off a break. Injury obviously so you don't always have your best players available, and knock on to make it harder to maintain possession.

3. Lineouts. Arcade makes it harder to win lineouts so this might be an option if you want a little more challenge, but obviously sim is more enjoyable.

4. Camera. I like to use end cam, zoomed most of the way in and at a low height. Zoomed in makes it harder to recognise when we've got an overlap, and the height makes it harder to judge how much room you have. Basically zoomed in at low height gives a player's perspective, which is realistic ;)

We have to remember that in real life players do not have the benefit of seeing the whole field. When they make a break often they won't see the support, often they'll throw a poor pass, often they'll hesitate and hang on to the ball. A scrumhalf/flyhalf won't always see the overlap so they'll often make the wrong choice. We should really be playing with the same handicaps. Lately I've been playing madden superstar mode a running back (with my AI coach and his poor playcalling). The view is low and zoomed in. It makes it harder to see just where the gaps are and where defenders are coming from. I can really only see where I'm going. Using the custom cam we can do something similar with R08.

I'm sure we can also make the game harder by tweaking stats. Maybe lower the speed differential between players, lower passing skill, lower kicking skill etc.
 
no set plays inside your own half

no more than 3 hitups with forwards in a row

no more than 3 phases inside your own 22... kick to clear pressure

no dive tackle

only 1 switch player allowed each phase
 
Brilliant points, man. I love your way of thinking. Very positive and good sportsmanship. Especially the way you take things into consideration.

Yeah there definitely are many cheap tricks, but like you said -- using them makes the game actually less unrealistic, and less enjoyable. I actually like the challenge of trying to run my way through the defence, as apposed to go for the grubber, kick and recover option everytime.

That's also why I don't like playing tournaments and so on. I love experimenting, and just playing for the love of it, instead of trying to win some cup. I try and see how creative I can be with my playing.
 
These are all really good ideas.

I try to play as realistically as possible to make the games tougher.

Plus, in Rugby 06 I had the help of many grossly underrated Australian players who for one reason or another weren't yet really recognised as good international players.

Examples -

Cameron Shepherd is as slow as a tight forward.

Mark Chisholm generally loses lineouts to inferior real life players.

Greg Holmes, Benn Robinson and Guy Shepherdson all have crappy ratings.

Stephen Hoiles has a low lineout rating.

I always put injuries to the full amount. Still, some games there'll be no injuries at all.

I also like to have my 'rougher' players (such as Tawake, Elsom, McMeniman, Tuqiri etc.) use plenty of high tackles and every now and then they'll get carded.
 
I love your way of thinking

Love yours too, south african girls mmm ;)

Cameron Shepherd is as slow as a tight forward.

Yeah the stats are pretty poor. If you liked shepherd last year you'll LOVE turner this year. About 45 in speed...
 
I love your way of thinking

Love yours too, south african girls mmm ;)

Cameron Shepherd is as slow as a tight forward.

Yeah the stats are pretty poor. If you liked shepherd last year you'll LOVE turner this year. About 45 in speed...
[/b]

Damn!

The first thing I was going to do when I get the game was fix up the Australian squad to make it MY personal XV and he was included.

Oh well, I'll still find ways for him to score tries.
 
Got the game this morning, yes theres improvements. Its better, but still to easy. Was Wales and bt South Africa 46-13 on Elite. Any tips on making it harder?
 
still trying to work out ways of making defense a bit harder - i tried not sprinting at all but that made it really hard cause the ai players on my team just watched people run past them with the ball...

anyone else got any ideas to help the cpu score points against my rock solid springbok defense?
 
I think the best way to make the game harder is to replace your teams first team line up with second rate players - keep the same team but use worse players. I did this in 06 and it worked a treat. If I have the right players, I struggled to win games, even playing as England.
 
i picked the current springbok world cup squad and played as them - even with Pierre 'flyhalf' Spies playing at no8, BJ '41ovrl' Botha starting, and habana injured i still won the final fairly comfortably...

im thinking of turning difficulty down a little, and restricting myself to not sprinting on defense maybe.. argh but then attacking will be too easy
 
I just stack a team full of star players and play against them usually makes it harder or I just kickoff straight to the oppositions winger and just let them get heaps of trys then try and make a comeback during the 2nd half.
 
bokean, are you using a restricted camera angle? This is probably the best way to make attack in the game more difficult, apart from not using speedy backs.

Couple more rules I use that I forgot to add:

1. I don't use a "sweeping" defender behind my defensive line.

2. I don't rush the flyhalf, I maintain a defensive line.

With defending I generally try to take control of the tackler in front of the ball carrier. If there is a hole in my line (better this year but it still happens) I'll take control of the nearest defender and drift to cover it. If they're keeping it tight and I'm using tight defence I'll let the AI tackle for me.

Another idea is to just use the tight defensive line and drift it. Makes tactical kicking easier for the AI and also means they have a good run if they get it wide (and they will take it wide).
 
i picked the current springbok world cup squad and played as them - even with Pierre 'flyhalf' Spies playing at no8, BJ '41ovrl' Botha starting, and habana injured i still won the final fairly comfortably...

im thinking of turning difficulty down a little, and restricting myself to not sprinting on defense maybe.. argh but then attacking will be too easy [/b]



Thats not what i'm talking about, you're only going half the way! What I mean is you need to completely restructure your team, by replacing your world cup squad with 22 or 30 new players however many there are. Go through the database of Springbock players (i,e Add new players) and pick a completely different team using with second rate players. Look at their stats to create a balanced team which is not utterly useless, and can still compete. I did it with England, i.e replaced Borthwick, Hill etc with lesser pl,yers e.g Lund, Corry and even worse and it works a treat. With the original England team I could beat teams by 50 points on elite, but with the new team the games against the big guns are really tough. Also go into the other team rosters and make sure they have included all the best players because you'll find some of them are sitting on the bench or are not even in the starting 30!



Let me know how you get on!



Cheers
 
try using only one defender in defense making your other guys make a majority of the tackles, this one was uncovered back in 06.

so say you have the fly half and you go to tackle the first receiver and he offloads out, your done for the play unless somehow your fly half that you were controlling can get back up and make the tackle later in the play.

DONT SWITCH DEFENDERS.

Should make it harder i think
 
try using only one defender in defense making your other guys make a majority of the tackles, this one was uncovered back in 06.

so say you have the fly half and you go to tackle the first receiver and he offloads out, your done for the play unless somehow your fly half that you were controlling can get back up and make the tackle later in the play.

DONT SWITCH DEFENDERS.

Should make it harder i think [/b]



This is exactly right. Once your player has made a tackle you just have to watch in despair, as the opposition carves you ai team mates up! Its a great fun way to play, and your get some awsome tries scored against you.
 
sweet i will try this!!!! thnx guys [/b]





I agree, camera angles make a big difference in difficulty, as a player or even as a coach you don't have that excellent perspective of the field these cameras set for you. If you put the camera lower it will be harder. Although I have to disagree with arcade offloads, as long as you put knock ons on the highest setting, I found arcade offloads to be much better for the Ai, they offload considerably more and are able to make breaks easier due to this. Another rule I use is when I do grubber the ball through is I can't use the sprint button to retreive the ball, but once I grab the pill I can sprint again. Also it is very important to put stamina on highest setting, which means you get less sprint time. The thing I am most dissapointed about is the line outs, all they had to do is keep them like Rugby 06, they are much more difficult in 06. To be very honest I got both games going, and I am still trying to see which is funner to play. Although playing 08 has made me change some gamplay options with 06 which makes 06 more challenging now. :)

Cheers and Salu
 

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