Striking and grappling should “blend” more in the next game

[Good Grappler]

Right now, it feels as though the striking and grappling are two entirely different things.

When you’re striking, you’re just... striking. Not even “MMA” striking... it’s just straight up kickboxing. And then once you get a hold of your opponent, it’s just a full-on grappling match. You’re either striking, or you’re grappling. There’s no middle ground.

As a result, “MMA striking” essentially doesn’t exist in the game. You can’t land punches between or during grappling exchanges. You really can’t use your grappling to open up your striking at all. Entire strategies - and fighters who have built their career around such strategies - are impossible in this game.


Think about all the times in MMA where a wrestler/grappler is able to land meaningful strikes - or even outstike entirely - a superior striker, simply because of the takedown threat. Randleman vs Cro Cop, Colby vs Lawler, Khabib vs Edson, Cain vs JDS. I mean, if those were straightup kickboxing matches, I highly doubt they would have gone the way they did. But “MMA striking” is a different story.


This is what EA UFC 3 has entirely wrong. There is no “MMA striking” in this game. It’s just striking. There’s grappling, and there’s striking.

So the superior striker will win the striking exchanges 100% of the time. Because when you’re striking, all you have to focus on is striking. You might have to stop striking for a moment to input a grapple denial, but then it’s right back to essentially k1 rules kickboxing.

I don’t like feeling as if I’m in a kickboxing match until the moment I get a hold of my opponent. I want to feel more of a natural blend between the striking and the grappling. I want to be able to land punches between takedown attempts like Gregor Gillespie. I want to be able to create a sense of chaos by blending my strikes with my grappling.

I want to see scrambles where clinch attempts become punches, and punches become clinch attempts. I want sequences like “punch, clinch, punch” to be as seamless as “punch punch punch”.

This gray area between the striking and the grappling is what MMA games fail to capture. And I believe that if EA is able to capture this type of chaos in their next MMA game, it will make the game 100x better.

[Evil97]

From day one of UFC 2, it feels like two completely different hats you put on. Even something like how on the ground, you punch with your left hand based on the which side you're on has always turned me off. It's like you become a spectator the moment it hits the ground. I would like a consistent point of perspective as if I'm the fighter. A transition to the fighters left side should always be a left denial regardless of what view point I'm looking at as the gamer. I understand how it makes sense with an ease of just saying if you see movement to the left, then deny left, but like I said, this completely removes you from within the game as the fighter, and as it stands now, it is not consistent with the stand up sense of perspective. It's actually quite a jarring shift.

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[Kingslayer04]

I also wonder if there can be a distinction between open cage and against the cage wrestling. Like have them be different attributes in grappling, where Khabib is significantly more dangerous if he gets you next to the cage, in both stamina depletion and takedown terms. I'm just thinking out loud but why not. Covington's another guy who works best against the cage.


Edit: I don't mean to undermine Khabib's skills in the open, he should get high stats for that too, it just clear to probably everyone now that he actively looks to get people to the cage instead of just shooting in the centre. He should also be able to get people to the cage from the open through chain wrestling which also should be an attribute of its own.

[1212headkick]

Were missing 80 percent of the game because the fence is close to non existent

[Boiler569]

I absolutly hope this is a major focus (if not THE major focus) of gameplay development for UFC 4.

I've always hoped for some sort of Scramble Mechanic that serves as the glue between Striking; Clinch; and Wrestling/Takedowns.

I'd like to see the Joysticks used (rather than button presses). In my mind's eye, I see something akin to Tony Hawk Pro Skater where there is a balancing act that must be performed --- of course, you're not just trying to keep YOUR balance, you're trying to throw off your opponent. Either literally (judo throw/takedown) or figuratvely (you shuck-off their takedown attempt, throw them off balance, and counter with a big Head Kick, for example).

The two player's actual skill will be involved, but so will the Fighter's attributes, moveset, perks, etc.

Not sure if this is the best route to go ... but seems to make sense to me ... some set of gameplay mechanics to transition (and halt opponent's transition) between the different areas of a fight.

If done well, this would make a HUGE differnece in how dynamic fights are....hoping for the best !!

[Good Grappler]

I don’t think it would be too complicated honestly. Even the current build could have this added to it, with a little bit of surgery. Here are some way I visualize this happening:

- In the TD against the cage position. Make it so I - the offender - can abandon the TD and immediately land strikes. So cut out that 2 second animation where my fighter separates and steps back to kicking range, and just allow immediate punches to be thrown. Oh, and allow an immediate re-shoot after those punches.

- While attempting a single leg or double leg out in the open. If my TD is getting stuffed, allow me to abandon it and throw IMMEDIATE punches. No pause or animation delay. Of course, this would require a bit of a TDD overhaul, because the current denail system wouldn’t jive well with this. So ASSUMING the next game makes takedown defense more of a sustained battle - the offender should be able to abandon the TD attempt and throw shots ASAP. This happens in literally every fight (brief single leg attempt, let go and throw punches).

- Allow a fighter to break away from clinch positions and throw IMMEDIATE punches, then IMMEDIATELY re-engage. So this would create dope scenarios where when you’re clinch grappling, you gotta be weary of a sudden flurry of punches coming to your head upon separating. And then during that flurry of punches, you gotta be weary of overcommiting to the head blocking, because the reshoot may be coming. This, too, would require a bit of an overhaul to the current clinch system. I think transition based clinching is a bit wrong - it shouldn’t be transition based like the ground. It should be pushing and holding based. The joysticks should be engaged at all times in the clinch. Because I think certain transitions like breaks, or switching to MT, should be nearly instantaneous, based upon stamina and grappling stats. Like if I’m pushing against you in a certain direction, a properly executed escape in the correct direction shouldn’t be “deniable”. And instead of denials, as it is now, which feels super lame in the clinch, it should just be about counters. Like any movement should have an appropriate reaction. This way, stalemates can still happen, but only because both players are aware of their positioning and aren’t doing anything to make themselves vulnerable.

[TheGentlemanGhost]

More branching animations and control is needed. The driving into the cage animation should be a lot more controllable. It should not be a canned animation you can do automatically and should branch into multiple outcomes based on our input varying on timing, stamina and ratings. But unfortunately most successful takedowns in general aren’t really based on realistic windows at all. That has to be changed back to how it was in UFC 2.

The lack of real time controls in grappling is what really causes the grappling not to feel so blended as well as the games lack of true takedown windows and the combo system not translating well (or at all) with takedowns. Too many “systems” just don’t seem to communicate with each other. Vulnerability doesn’t seem to blend well with the Stamina and combo systems, stamina is too potent in the grapple system when it comes to denials draining so that dictates the entire sub system and of course takedowns are not exactly accounted for with the combo system... a lot of these “systems” just don’t mix well.

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[That Ragdoll Guy]

Nothing of this will ever work, if we dont fix the animations. Having a game full of animations...

1. Slows the game down (Every knockdown that has an automatic stand up or cage reaction or ground attack or whatever to it, slows the game down. Every takedown looks the same and there is no way to avoid it. Once you missed the animation the takedown animation plays and there is nothing you can do about it anymore. Slows the game down) Only two quick examples.

2. Breaks the game (I have had so many scenarios where the game just crashed on me, cause the game couldnt handle the physics. Mostly cage-strikes)

3. Has no longlivity (Seeing the same animations over and over again gets boring, after like 5 months)

Whats the solution to this? Either record 4-5 dozen of animations for each takedown and strike, or create a system like UFC 2s KO Physics, that gives you unique animations everytime. For Takedowns, Clinch entries, strikes, ground grappling, cage grappling and clinch grappling... everything should have something special to it, in UFC 2 it was the KO animations that made the game fun for so long. Something UD 3 really did good was the ground game, you could use the cage to work your way up. Everything felt like it was a part of each other. The cage was a useful thing, in UFC 3 its just there. GSPs transition from striking to grappling looked so good for such a crazy old game.

I hope Im wrong... But we are so late into developement that nothing of this could be implemented anymore. If we take the release dates of UFC 1 & 2 & 3 as example for a potential release, then we are about 3 months away from a release. My fear is that they do the same to the UFC game what Madden 20 did to their game. Changing fluid gameplay with unstoppable animations. Madden 20 game was a complete failure.