AFL Evolution - Launch thread

[Xtreme]

Observations: Not irritating (yet) but I've noticed the "snap for goal" kicking animation gets used a bit with long bomb torpedos (particularly when it doesn't make sense, the player didn't side step or spin around etc), it just looks odd where a 50m+ torp gets kicked barely off a step. Yes I'm aware some players can do it in real life....... but from a sideways snap kick ?

Still "spectating" AI v AI games, now I've added pre season rules (for the super goal!), makes a lot of matches more interesting. Particularly if they involve Sydney (as Buddy does many center square or 50m bombs that qualify as super goals). Have had a few good matches that were turned on their head because of the 9 pointers.

Took 5 games but I've hit my stride in my rookie pro career (well second year after doing the TAC cup for the first season). It took until the second half of the current game to finally hit the accelerator and enter beast mode.

They need to patch out the shadows, didn't know what they were until I adjusted my screen resolution, at first I thought it was simulated mud.

 

[Ahern2Boof]

I shouldn't judge, but some of you guys seriously waste your time watching AI v AI?

 

[Xtreme]

The screenshots don't do the graphics justice, but I love the way some of the grounds look (how the lighting works). MCG during the day, Tasmania during the day and Metricon during Twilight (particularly when kicking right to left in the second half) look pretty cool.

Two recent games (I posted about the Sydney game this past week). The Geelong game was cool considering I had to overhaul their score.... and wound up thumping them.

I shouldn't judge, but some of you guys seriously waste your time watching AI v AI?

I started doing it in AFL just to see what the AI would do against itself. I've found it fun to a degree seeing what happens when one team gets on a run, if the other AI can come back etc (sometimes yes, sometimes no!).

It's a different perspective and gives me a bit of a break from "playing" the game myself, but still retain some interest in it. I've watched AI v AI matches in NBA 2K and Fifa previously.

 

[FearTheBeard13]

I shouldn't judge, but some of you guys seriously waste your time watching AI v AI?

This is a message board, if there's anything you SHOULD be doing, it's judging

 

[Donners]

Looks like its Steam launch has been rather dismal. Peak of 71 players, with an average of 11.5.

http://steamcharts.com/app/435020

 

[Xtreme]

Proud to be 1 of the 71!

 

[elpirate]

Me too!!

 

[palmomagpie]

Just started season 2018 in my PS4 save as Hawthorn. My JLT matches were game 1 vs Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, game 2 vs Adelaide Crows at MCG, game 3 bye, game 4 vs Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval. I don't know if the game searches my location settings and thinks i just want to play the Adelaide teams or not, but thats just weird :/ haha and i have 9 home games at UTAS Stadium during the H&A season (including a few Wednesday 2pm games). Fixturing isn't this game's strong point

 

[NotAMagpieBogan]

Got the game yesterday. Couple of things annoying me. In competition mode, you can't choose your team lineup if you're the away team... um why? And I try to save my team lineup, and it just reverts back to the auto lineup when it start the game. Haven't got the hang of marking yet either, it's a tricky system.

 

[Mootsy]

Looks like its Steam launch has been rather dismal. Peak of 71 players, with an average of 11.5.

http://steamcharts.com/app/435020

The game probably needs more marketing????

I mean it's fairly self explanatory as a game title, maybe it's the reviews having an effect??

Not sure, to be honest it's the first AFL game to ever hit steam so it's going to be a market of 5 states in one country...

MAybe a lot of folk bought it on console instead in those first couple of months...

Still those numbers could be better.

 

[Mootsy]

Got the game yesterday. Couple of things annoying me. In competition mode, you can't choose your team lineup if you're the away team... um why? And I try to save my team lineup, and it just reverts back to the auto lineup when it start the game. Haven't got the hang of marking yet either, it's a tricky system.

Marking is essentially about the timing of two separate actions, running to position and timing of button release when the circle turns blue, now my assumption is that they've made it this way to replicate how hard it is to mark in the real life game in contests. Cleverly on one hand, frustrating if you just want a fun/easy way to mark the ball.

 

[Mootsy]

Got the game yesterday. Couple of things annoying me. In competition mode, you can't choose your team lineup if you're the away team... um why? And I try to save my team lineup, and it just reverts back to the auto lineup when it start the game. Haven't got the hang of marking yet either, it's a tricky system.

That would be great if they make a save feature, I mean maybe they assume that people will just never turn off their ps4, lol.

 

[sfletch100]

Got the game yesterday. Couple of things annoying me. In competition mode, you can't choose your team lineup if you're the away team... um why? And I try to save my team lineup, and it just reverts back to the auto lineup when it start the game. Haven't got the hang of marking yet either, it's a tricky system.

One of my biggest annoyances is the team selection thing. I wrote to them the other day about this and it's being addressed in the upcoming patch apparently. The response was not too long after I sent.

 

[Xtreme]

For some reason the game is running extra sluggish on my pc takes a little longer to go from the developer logos to the main title screen. The players don't appear instantly on the team selection screen, the match now takes longer to load than on the xbox. And theres a few pauses during game play (siren sounds.... players and umpire stand still for 40 seconds before the ball is bounced).

#pcissues lol don't know why its happening as its been running pretty good for me (aside from launch weekend).

 

[FearTheBeard13]

For some reason the game is running extra sluggish on my pc takes a little longer to go from the developer logos to the main title screen. The players don't appear instantly on the team selection screen, the match now takes longer to load than on the xbox. And theres a few pauses during game play (siren sounds.... players and umpire stand still for 40 seconds before the ball is bounced).

#pcissues lol don't know why its happening as its been running pretty good for me (aside from launch weekend).

Downloaded too much pr0n perhaps?

 

[Xtreme]

Nah I reckon its Windows update related. I'm going to buy more ram to beef things up and see what happens.

 

[footyfan000001]

Saw on YouTube a fella who was playing and was able to customise gameplay options. Eg kicking accuracy, marking timing etc. Does anyone know how to get to this??

 

[Quivorir]

Saw on YouTube a fella who was playing and was able to customise gameplay options. Eg kicking accuracy, marking timing etc. Does anyone know how to get to this??

PC

 

[footyfan000001]

PC

Would make the Playstation version so much better. That is so frustrating!

 

[Quivorir]

Would make the Playstation version so much better. That is so frustrating!

I would hope it is part of the next patch.

 

[Treehill23]

Whilst I've got the hang of marking, it's still a terrible part of the game
When two players are running at the ball both in the same animation of a chest mark, how tf is the player behind marking it? The ball literally goes through the first player
And before you saying anything, no Mootsy, the timing shouldn't matter in a case like this.
So often the player out of position marks it. It should purely be based on positioning and timing should be about whether or not they drop it. Something about trying to do too much with certain mechanics of the game and not enough on other fronts. Like the most important part in tactics. Sick of playing 90's football

 

[SugarShane]

Whilst I've got the hang of marking, it's still a terrible part of the game
When two players are running at the ball both in the same animation of a chest mark, how tf is the player behind marking it? The ball literally goes through the first player
And before you saying anything, no Mootsy, the timing shouldn't matter in a case like this.
So often the player out of position marks it. It should purely be based on positioning and timing should be about whether or not they drop it. Something about trying to do too much with certain mechanics of the game and not enough on other fronts. Like the most important part in tactics. Sick of playing 90's football

Very well put. Bang on. The timing system is clunky as hell, yet has the most effect on marks. Nothing about it feels natural.

 

[ptrg]

Very well put. Bang on. The timing system is clunky as hell, yet has the most effect on marks. Nothing about it feels natural.

Once you get the sliders, it makes it much better! There's 4 marking sliders (for both user and CPU): timing, positioning, stats and overall.
Still trying to find the best balance, but I have turned down timing a fair bit, slightly lowered positioning, and let stats be the dominating slider.

This does mean sometimes I cannot win a marking contest with a crap player against a good one, but to me this is more realistic, and if I can see it's one of my crapper players, I go the spoil (mentioned previously that I have spoiling turned right up for both User and CPU).

Then it's just a matter of tweaking he overall marking slider to find the happy medium where's I can still mark and spoil, but not just get out marked from one end to the other.

Makes it MUCH more enjoyable.
But you do need sliders for this obviously

 

[ptrg]

Just quickly, another thing I tried and am really liking the feet is stamina.

I've turned it down to 15% and fatigue up to 99% (for both User and CPU). In addition to this, I spent the time going through the sides in stat editor, and most of the big men much slower, so they struggle to get to too many contests.

This is having a really good effect, as when I'm playing matches (7.5min quarters) I'm finding the second halves are becoming much more open due to different players running out of legs. The last quarters are really exciting as multiple times both teams are able to find guys on their own due to their man not being able to go with them!

Next step is to maybe further alter individual player stats so the elite do better, but at this stage it's a much more fun game, which creates some fun and frantic finishes!

 

[Xtreme]

I still need to experiment, I mucked around with it early on to the point where it was basically one kick from the center square, resulting in goal after goal (granted I know this can happen when you build individual stats of players up in season/career) but having every player be able to do it straight away was amusing (reminded me of Fifa '96 entering the cheat code for super kicks and being able control the goalie, pick the goal up from his defending goal post, kick the ball to the other end and score).

I see the critisism of the goal kicking mechanics being too simple, I get it.... but I also think it's better to not over complicate it (like the rucking mechanic from one of the 2000 era games going from simplistic in the previous years game to something hardly anyone knew how to do it properly!). I myself still stuff up the timing of the kicking meter, I find it moves ok at the beginning.... but when it gets to 70-75% it then moves too quickly to stop it before it goes completely red (and thus kicked out on the full). Which is why I'm happy that as you build up the player(s) skills in the season mode, the meter becomes a non issue when the goal kicking, kicking power stats are improved (meaning it takes less of the meter being full to then be able to safely kick from further than 30m out).

One of the things I do to increase the difficulty a bit, is not have the wind assistance meter on........ that way it takes a bit of guess work (at the start at least) of where to aim the ball. As a lot of my goals tend to be scored in play/on the run as opposed to set shots, I'll generally forget if the wind is going left to right or right to left (and then having to alter my aim accordingly) and I'll still bomb it out on the full in the last quarter haha.

I've seen how aiming the ball while kicking for goal at an angle, has no difference despite heavy wind. For example when taking a set shot straight in front and the ball moves left or right..... but then kick for goal at a similar distance, but from left or right of the boundary line (and thus I've aimed to compensate for where the wind direction SHOULD take the ball) - the ball doesn't get shifted by the wind as though it's not windy at all. It's hard to explain without seeing it in action (still need to set up a youtube channel and upload my clips!).

I'm noticing a lot of the little glitches and things, like some players shaking on the spot like they are having seizures, clipping issues where two players bodies going through an umpire etc.

One game I watched Hawthorn v Port Adelaide, I could tell it wasn't going to be Hawthorn's day........ they got an early clearance in the first 30 seconds, booted it forward........ Roughead just went side to side and missed the ball completely! It was close at quarter time (10 points) but then the margin blew out from quarter to quarter. Port won by 50, should have been 26........ but with my obsession of turning every game into a pre season rule match (enabling super goals!) Port had kicked way more super goals than Hawthorn.