Multiplat AFL Evolution 2

[Monfries7]

Loving how realistic this game is.

I can not for the life of me score a goal with Kayne Turner.

Same goes for me but with Sam Powell-Pepper. Has kicked 2.16 for the season and it’s extremely realistic

 

[JT_the_Man]

AFL Evo 2 online summed up
View attachment 855789

I believe that you are taking a set shot with Ben Brown, and that this is not at all a glitch.

 

[JT_the_Man]

Loving how realistic this game is.

I can not for the life of me score a goal with Kayne Turner.

Hehe, just played against North and everyone was kicking every goal they looked at... Except Turner who had 1.3.

 

[BlackMamba]

Made a kid rage quit from it and probably pissed off Killer Creed with it. Hopefully that makes it into one of his videos so I can watch him rage

Hahahaha I just played that Killer Creed dude from YouTube in an online game, the guy who does nothing but trash the game, and beat him with a goal after the siren. He was ahead the whole game too

LOL... this kid...where his YouTube account says 'This channel is all about being positive', but goes on a rant about the game being 'the worst AFL game to ever be made'.... all because he got his game delivered late and he can't get more YouTube subscribers from it...….

Pretty sure he said he wasn't going to play the game anymore until the patch.... yet there he is, still playing the game online...

 

[wcesam]

Anyone else having trouble finding an opponent for an online match? Surely it’s not my internet because I’ve tried everything. Just curious if I’m not the only one

Pretty sure it was/is broken. Nothing online was working for me

 

[melbournemartin]

My quick thoughts as someone who has played every WW game (except the PSP game above...) and every BA football and cricket game is:

OFF TOPIC: I think DBC14 gets a lot of love because it was the first to not have the bowl on a dime mechanic (amongst a few other things including the world's first player sharing server across rival platforms), I agree on DBC17 (it was a step backwards), but I think Ashes > DBC14 as we gained back control of the franchise and published it ourselves, with Cricket 19 - I think it's the best of them (we're still supporting it with patches to this day, there are more to come).
Edit: Sometimes you push too hard and break things, IMO RLL3 > RLL4.

I think AFL Live 1 is similar to DBC 14, in both how it differed from previous games and how it was received by the community. It was the first AFL game to not have 18 pairs of players in static positions. Moving away from that was comparable I think to DBC moving away from pitch markers. I think it was refreshing for most, but too much of a shock to the system for some. They said batting was too hard in DBC (ever tried real life?) and that the game was too congested in AFL (ever seen a real game?).

Add in the fact that they were both the first to have significant customization options and were built with strong community input (some of you guys never saw BigAntStudios tirelessly on Planetcricket forums being demanded to have keyboard & mouse options, amongst other things...), and that there was a gap of a few years since anything had been released.

So to those who say we always look back on AFL Live 1 with rose-tinted glasses, you're probably right and it's by no means perfect, but * me it was the best step forward we ever got in this genre. 10 years later, yes AFL Evo 2 does some things better, or at least similarly well. Referring to an earlier point, there is a lot more fluidity of player movement compared to Evo 1, and they do flood back, play loose and you can get some of the nice link up play we had in AFL Live 1. But you also get some pretty rough on ball mechanics. But I mean yay, it can compare reasonably in some areas to a previous gen, 10 year-old game...

Now go out and compare Cricket 19, which is a legitimately very good sports game (no qualifiers of "Australian" or "cricket") to DBC 14 and it blows it out of the park. That's what we could have had with BA in charge. Sure, there would have perhaps been some hiccups along the way (your DBC 17 assessment is interesting, and one I agree with), but there would have been a faster upwards trend and from a better starting point (the AFL challenge game from WW I mentioned earlier was literally released 1 year before Big Ant's AFL Live).

With this all said, I think I might go give Evo 2 another crack with some of the suggested sliders and cameras here before returning to my typically futile attempt to get out Ben Stokes. Cricket 19 is too realistic at times

 

[MadMundy]

LOL... this kid...where his YouTube account says 'This channel is all about being positive', but goes on a rant about the game being 'the worst AFL game to ever be made'.... all because he got his game delivered late and he can't get more YouTube subscribers from it...….

Pretty sure he said he wasn't going to play the game anymore until the patch.... yet there he is, still playing the game online...

Yeah it shocked me too, and he's been grinding online quite a bit based off the leaderboards. Glad that I could at least help contribute to his rage guy blames all his mistakes in the game on Wicked Witch and glitches when you know maybe he's just bad at the game?

 

[GoldbergsGold]

My quick thoughts as someone who has played every WW game (except the PSP game above...) and every BA football and cricket game is:


I think AFL Live 1 is similar to DBC 14, in both how it differed from previous games and how it was received by the community. It was the first AFL game to not have 18 pairs of players in static positions. Moving away from that was comparable I think to DBC moving away from pitch markers. I think it was refreshing for most, but too much of a shock to the system for some. They said batting was too hard in DBC (ever tried real life?) and that the game was too congested in AFL (ever seen a real game?).

Add in the fact that they were both the first to have significant customization options and were built with strong community input (some of you guys never saw BigAntStudios tirelessly on Planetcricket forums being demanded to have keyboard & mouse options, amongst other things...), and that there was a gap of a few years since anything had been released.

So to those who say we always look back on AFL Live 1 with rose-tinted glasses, you're probably right and it's by no means perfect, but fu** me it was the best step forward we ever got in this genre. 10 years later, yes AFL Evo 2 does some things better, or at least similarly well. Referring to an earlier point, there is a lot more fluidity of player movement compared to Evo 1, and they do flood back, play loose and you can get some of the nice link up play we had in AFL Live 1. But you also get some pretty rough on ball mechanics. But I mean yay, it can compare reasonably in some areas to a previous gen, 10 year-old game...

Now go out and compare Cricket 19, which is a legitimately very good sports game (no qualifiers of "Australian" or "cricket") to DBC 14 and it blows it out of the park. That's what we could have had with BA in charge. Sure, there would have perhaps been some hiccups along the way (your DBC 17 assessment is interesting, and one I agree with), but there would have been a faster upwards trend and from a better starting point (the AFL challenge game from WW I mentioned earlier was literally released 1 year before Big Ant's AFL Live).

With this all said, I think I might go give Evo 2 another crack with some of the suggested sliders and cameras here before returning to my typically futile attempt to get out Ben Stokes. Cricket 19 is too realistic at times

I play PES a lot, and Live 1 was the closest to being as fluid and feeling timed properly with the movements, in my opinion. Because in PES, when playing on the hardest difficulty, it's all about composure and strategy. If the movements of the players or ball were too fast or wonky, it messes up your plays. I would do similar strategic plays in Live 1, like chain hand pass a switch in the back line to open up one of the other wings and stab pass when a player was loose. I'm having to wait for the PC port of Evo 2, but seeing the gameplay videos, everyone seems to just bomb the ball in fast. I don't know if that's just them or if the game is designed around lack of composure. The hand passing looks more wonkier in Evo 2 than Live 1, but I wouldn't know if that's 100% true without playing it.

 

[Dark Sharks]

Anyone else having trouble finding an opponent for an online match? Surely it’s not my internet because I’ve tried everything. Just curious if I’m not the only one

Pretty sure it was/is broken. Nothing online was working for me

Yeah I struggled getting online opponents for unranked games. Only game it would attempt to let me join was a 6-8 person game which is a joke as there's just so much lag.

Had to keep quitting and then joining again but it kept giving me the same crap group game over and over.

I bailed and just did single player vs the AI.

 

[Schulzenfest]

There are some really ******* basic things that seem like they would be really easy to fix that need to be fixed for this game. I'd say they need to be fixed in the next patch, but honestly the game shouldn't even have been released without these things fixed.

You can't change the default quarter length from 2.5 minutes. Every exhibition game I have to manually set it.

You can't change the default kick in player and second ruckman in the roles menu. Every exhibition game I have to manually set it.

You can't have the camera zoomed too far out (on side at least, I haven't tried with other cameras) or the graphics start cutting out. Any zoom less than about thirty and I start getting regular half seconds of black screen during gameplay.

The first ruck only seems to spend about 50% of time on ground. I spent most of my last game with Dixon in the ruck, Tom Rockliff at full forward and Lycett on the bench.

And that's without mentioning stuff like the baffling player ratings, or the players who have three year old haircuts, three year old positions, or the wrong skin tone. I know the budget isn't EA or 2K level, but that's no excuse for some of the very poor attention to detail. Unlike Evo 1 they've at least got a first draft of a good game here, but if you're gonna charge $99.00 for a game you could at least make the effort to get basic details like the above right.

 

[footyfan000001]

This is annoying me too, and is a big part of why I gave up on Evolution. Play on the lower difficulty and you pump them. But then playing on higher difficulties doesn't make the AI smarter, it just gives them abilities and luck that you don't have. In one of my games Caleb Daniel snapped a 60m goal that cleared the goal line by about 5m about a second after gathering the ball and while facing the wing. And this is after about 5 tackles in a row spilled the ball directly to their closest opponent on the full.

It's just really really cheap and cheesy.

Couldn’t agree more. Move it up to a harder difficulty and I’d accept - crisper ball movement, more fend offs, more marks for them. Not kicking goals from 60 off one step while facing the opposite direction. Just very deflating

 

[footyfan1978]

Some minor bugs noticed today in third attempt at playing. Nic Newman for some reason kept ending up my main ruckman. I went to team management and thought I got him out of there and Kruezer back there but later on in another game he back there and when went in to change him it shows restriction and cannot move him out of that position. WTF???

Also I see Willie Rioli in goal scorers for Eagles in the season I playing. The guy is suspended by WADA but Evolution 2 is above WADA...

 

[melbournemartin]

I play PES a lot, and Live 1 was the closest to being as fluid and feeling timed properly with the movements, in my opinion. Because in PES, when playing on the hardest difficulty, it's all about composure and strategy. If the movements of the players or ball were too fast or wonky, it messes up your plays. I would do similar strategic plays in Live 1, like chain hand pass a switch in the back line to open up one of the other wings and stab pass when a player was loose. I'm having to wait for the PC port of Evo 2, but seeing the gameplay videos, everyone seems to just bomb the ball in fast. I don't know if that's just them or if the game is designed around lack of composure. The hand passing looks more wonkier in Evo 2 than Live 1, but I wouldn't know if that's 100% true without playing it.

I think this is a consequence of using a side to side camera. If you can only see 25 metres in front of you, what else are you meant to do?

People should use the end to end camera. You can make some very nice, satisfying kicks to leads and build up plays like that. The only issue is that it's then hard to switch the ball since you can't rotate the camera to the side (yet you can when taking the kick in, so hopefully it wouldn't be too hard for Wicked Witch to program in).

 

[melbournemartin]

And that's without mentioning stuff like the baffling player ratings, or the players who have three year old haircuts, three year old positions, or the wrong skin tone. I know the budget isn't EA or 2K level, but that's no excuse for some of the very poor attention to detail. Unlike Evo 1 they've at least got a first draft of a good game here, but if you're gonna charge $99.00 for a game you could at least make the effort to get basic details like the above right.

The problem is that this is actually Wicked Witch's fifth draft. Tru Blu sticks with them because they're cheap and the AFL name will sell irrespective of quality, and the league itself doesn't value gaming as a marketing tool.

 

[BigAntStudios]

I would think that the main benefit is the engine devs can roll out version improvements, and then your dev team don’t have to do it themselves, and can focus more on the game itself. (Making it a good argument for iterative games)

Might cost for the licensing, but could save money/time year-on-year (and maybe over to the upcoming new consoles).
this is why the investment to change to Unreal for this series excites me.

It's certainly the main reason to go there, not having to have an engineering team just for the internal engine - but the upside of being in control of your own destiny, controlling the supply chain is overwhelming for us. (The current issues the world has supply wise is an extreme version of what happens when you don't have your own supply/manufacture.)

The PS5 and Xbox Series are very like the previous in terms of dev, our engine is already up and running on them as we've had them at the office for a while. I think they might even be good enough to attract some PC players back.

 

[BallaratBulldog]

I am beginning to think this game should have been delayed yet again. You would want the patch to tidy up quite alot.

 

[Treehill23]

It's certainly the main reason to go there, not having to have an engineering team just for the internal engine - but the upside of being in control of your own destiny, controlling the supply chain is overwhelming for us. (The current issues the world has supply wise is an extreme version of what happens when you don't have your own supply/manufacture.)

The PS5 and Xbox Series are very like the previous in terms of dev, our engine is already up and running on them as we've had them at the office for a while. I think they might even be good enough to attract some PC players back.

From everything I’ve just read, it sounds like you’re extremely confident that you could have had this game in a much better position than it is now (despite it actually being a solid game)
With that being said, I don’t doubt that but I also don’t think it’s a fair assessment considering the fact that you’ve even admitted to going backwards in other sports titles at times
One of those you’ll never know things, so I appreciate the work WW have put in to make this game what it is today

Also on another point, a lot of people have mentioned an unlicensed game
Is there actually any chance that you’d give this a crack?
I mean I wouldn’t complain about having two AFL games
Or like COD does, instead of having a new release every second year with an update pack for $15 inbetween, could you alternate years of development ?
I mean this way it gives each dev 2 years to improve on their previous title and we also get a new AFL game every year
I guess licensing may not allow that but the unlicensed game could work that way

 

[wcesam]

I think this is a consequence of using a side to side camera. If you can only see 25 metres in front of you, what else are you meant to do?

People should use the end to end camera. You can make some very nice, satisfying kicks to leads and build up plays like that. The only issue is that it's then hard to switch the ball since you can't rotate the camera to the side (yet you can when taking the kick in, so hopefully it wouldn't be too hard for Wicked Witch to program in).

Yep I agree. I have found it is hard to compete online that way though. Could be wrong but it doesn't seem overly viable to win using an organised game plan when most people online just button smash the ball forward constantly

 

[Topkent]

I am beginning to think this game should have been delayed yet again. You would want the patch to tidy up quite alot.

Tonnes of people were begging for it out early, they put it out nearly a month early to appease people in the coronavirus situation then people like you still sook. Fmd

 

[GunshyFire]

I've been playing on All-Australian so far. Had a great Marsh series, pumped Port and the Blues by 100 each. False sense of confidence going into R1 against the Hawks though.

They went up by 5 goals and I struggled to get anything going. Something I've noticed in that game and the ones following is the AI seems to slow down a fair bit in the last quarter. So out of 9 games I've come from behind to win 4 under a goal, won 3 by 5+ goals and lost 2 by 4 goals. Doesn't seem too bad, but I wasn't happy with some of the gameplay. I was getting dropped off the ball constantly by the AI and if I returned the favour I'd give away a charging free almost every time. Almost every 4th tackle it felt like I was giving away a free for throwing the ball as well. Combined with the AI having a ridiculous boost to their marking, I was getting pissed.

Have since changed the sliders so that
User charging frees are 0 - Just to balance out the AI marking boost, so that I can bump them around and hold space to take marks, as I've found the X/A button to be less than helpful to hold position consistently.
User throwing the ball frees down to 25 - Seemed to consistently have this one paid against when I'd take possession of the ball in DEF and the camera was in the process of turning. Would directly result in AI shots on goal, which I've bumped all up to 65 because they were missing way too many early in pre-season.

Also copied the AI tackling distance down to 25 that some people suggested, but I've kept User tackling distance at 50 because the stats of certain guys like Dusty are just ridiculous to compete with.

Really frustrated that I'd spent hours on some of the lists fixing player ratings, positions and team lineups... Only to have 2 Eric Hipwoods pop up (1 replacing Allen Christensen) and multiple players wearing the same number on the field. No easy way to fix it that I'd seen, so I had to reset the entire roster. Not gonna bother touching it again, just gonna wait for the patch and hope for an improvement.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Really frustrated that I'd spent hours on some of the lists fixing player ratings, positions and team lineups... Only to have 2 Eric Hipwoods pop up (1 replacing Allen Christensen) and multiple players wearing the same number on the field. No easy way to fix it that I'd seen, so I had to reset the entire roster. Not gonna bother touching it again, just gonna wait for the patch and hope for an improvement.

When you edit a player's ratings, it gives you the option of creating a copy of a player. Click the no option.

 

[GunshyFire]

When you edit a player's ratings, it gives you the option of creating a copy of a player. Click the no option.

Yeah that's what I did every time. It wasn't just a second Hipwood though, he had completely overwritten Christensen and taken his spot on my field. Then I had a handful of players wearing Cal Ah Chee's number and another handful with Mitch Robinson's number.

 

[justlookingaround]

My team doesn’t make leads - they just stand there

 

[melbournemartin]

My team doesn’t make leads - they just stand there

If you do the lock on player (and you can use the analogue stick to change which player) they will typically make a lead towards you. I've done this with some success, managing some nice down the ground play. You really need the end to end camera though (or I guess the be a pro camera works too, but I haven't tried this mode yet).

 

[BallaratBulldog]

Tonnes of people were begging for it out early, they put it out nearly a month early to appease people in the coronavirus situation then people like you still sook. Fmd

The only person I see reguarly sooking in this thread is you tbh. (lot of deleted posts too)

At lest you didn't insult this time.