Live Tuner Set - April 11, 2019

[GameplayDevUFC]

Gameplay Changes

• Allow the fighter to perform fatigued major and minor lunges when in the stun health event state
• Increased the stun threshold for triggering a stun health event, making them slightly less common
• Allow health to regen a bit faster while in a stun health event
• Reduced the amount of long term stamina loss when a transition performed by the Dominant fighter is denied on the ground
• Slight speed up to the dominant half guard to side control transition
• Reduced damage on the cartwheel kick and the rolling thunder by 5
• Increase to the damage done by the lead spinning backfist by 2.5
• Increased block recovery on rolling thunder
• Slightly decrease damage of the lead jumping switch kick by 2.5
• Slightly increased block bleed through on the jumping switch kick

This is a gameplay only update, there are no ratings or records updates with this tuner set.

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Now a bit of analysis to go along with these changes.

The most significant change with this update is the ability to lunge while in the stun state. If you read my analysis of the rock meta prior to this tuner set located here...

https://forums.operationsports.com/f...tate-meta.html

...you'll understand why we chose to make this change.

Adding the ability to lunge while rocked provides a very important option select for the rocked fighter to deal with any strike that follows a blocked jab.

On the frame you confirm the blocked jab, you can immediately input a minor lunge to the outside of the jab while continuing to hold block, then immediately queue up a major back lunge while continuing to hold block.

If your opponent follows up with a jab, straight or uppercut you will evade it.

If your opponent follows up with a lead hook or back hook, you'll block it and in the worst case where you lunge into the hook while blocking, it will do about 10 damage. This is assuming full block meter, so the bleed through will vary depending on how much the block had broken down, and you clearly wouldn't want this outcome on the block breaking strike.



If your opponent throws a kick, including a lead roundhouse kick, the major back lunge is just fast enough to fully evade the kick. This does not require any reaction to the kick itself, but rather relies on executing the minor side lunge immediately upon block confirmation and queuing up the major back lunge before the minor side lunge completes.



This option select gives you the ability to protect your head against all attacks that come off the jab except the lead hook, in which case you will eat only mitigated block bleed through, the magnitude of which depends on the health of your block.

Combining this strategy with the ones outlined in my previous post should give players a full spectrum of survival options in the rock state.

I'm interested to see what other strategies emerge now that lunging is allowed while stunned.

[AydinDubstep]

Yoooooo!!!!

There goes my sleep for tonight

[johnmangala]

Did not expect another Tuner Set, this is good to see. Being able to lunge better in stunned states is significant.

If there is another can we have lowered recovery frames on denials? Then denying transitions would feel more like blocking a strike, like it should. We'd finally be able to chain/combo transitions like we can for strikes in the stand up.

There should be no GA from transition feints. Transition fakes are the reason we see so much feint fests in this game which we don't see in real life grappling. Feints should just be used to disguise and confuse opponents, like they are in the stand up- feints in the stand up don't grant GA, they shouldn't for grappling either.

This way denials and transition feints won't dominate grappling like they unnaturally do now.

[ZombieRommel]

Will test today, but here are my initial quick thoughts:

- Stun changes are good and should hopefully reduce the success rate of "rock fishing", which many players like to do in tandem with running away (because of the speed they get from suddenly planting to throw and the forward moving vuln suffered by the victim)

- Increased health regen in rocked state is all-around positive and should make the game more about skill rather than landing a big strike (such as a random head kick) out of nowhere and then firing off a canned finisher combo. Good.

- The ground changes, I don't like them. Certain ground specialists like Cormier, GSP, and Khabib were already super scary on top. They didn't need the ability to pass to side control FASTER, and I think the stamina loss from denials was somewhat mitigated by ground-specialist perks (like Crushing Presence etc). The stamina loss made people have to think about passing carefully rather than just throwing some baby strikes for GA and flicking out risky transitions.

- The kick changes (jumping roundhouse) I think aren't going to be noticeable to most players. Kind of a strange inclusion IMO.

- Nice to see lead backfist get a bit more damage.

- Cartwheel definitely needed a nerf. Comes out of nowhere.

- Rolling thunder I felt was decently balanced in that if you whiffed one, you were at a major disadvantage and could be punished easily. But no strong feelings here either way.

- Lunging while rocked - no idea what to expect. My gut feeling is that lunging into the "wrong" strike (a body strike while blocking high for instance) will be too punishing and so people will still tend to not lunge, but maybe with some finesse, people will figure out viable strategies, such as incorporating minor lunges. For me, the back lunge is a go-to to escape pressure combos, but the utility of a "rocked back lunge" will depend on how fast the lunge comes out and how much distance it covers. Will have to playtest this to really see what's going on, but I don't think it has much potential to hurt the game, so it's an interesting decision.

I like that the stun changes & rocked meta should affect pretty much every match, in other words they aren't safe, tepid tweaks.

The ground stuff I don't like & I feel will serve to "power up" already OP fighters and help players who already had extremely good reactions and setups on the ground.

The rest I'll have to see. I appreciate that some attention is still being directed to the game this late into the life cycle.

[Solid_Altair]

Quote: Originally Posted by ZombieRommel

Will test today, but here are my initial quick thoughts: - Stun changes are good and should hopefully reduce the success rate of "rock fishing", which many players like to do in tandem with running away (because of the speed they get from suddenly planting to throw and the forward moving vuln suffered by the victim) - Increased health regen in rocked state is all-around positive and should make the game more about skill rather than landing a big strike (such as a random head kick) out of nowhere and then firing off a canned finisher combo. Good. - The ground changes, I don't like them. Certain ground specialists like Cormier, GSP, and Khabib were already super scary on top. They didn't need the ability to pass to side control FASTER, and I think the stamina loss from denials was somewhat mitigated by ground-specialist perks (like Crushing Presence etc). The stamina loss made people have to think about passing carefully rather than just throwing some baby strikes for GA and flicking out risky transitions. - The kick changes (jumping roundhouse) I think aren't going to be noticeable to most players. Kind of a strange inclusion IMO. - Nice to see lead backfist get a bit more damage. - Cartwheel definitely needed a nerf. Comes out of nowhere. - Rolling thunder I felt was decently balanced in that if you whiffed one, you were at a major disadvantage and could be punished easily. But no strong feelings here either way. - Lunging while rocked - no idea what to expect. My gut feeling is that lunging into the "wrong" strike (a body strike while blocking high for instance) will be too punishing and so people will still tend to not lunge, but maybe with some finesse, people will figure out viable strategies, such as incorporating minor lunges. For me, the back lunge is a go-to to escape pressure combos, but the utility of a "rocked back lunge" will depend on how fast the lunge comes out and how much distance it covers. Will have to playtest this to really see what's going on, but I don't think it has much potential to hurt the game, so it's an interesting decision. I like that the stun changes & rocked meta should affect pretty much every match, in other words they aren't safe, tepid tweaks. The ground stuff I don't like & I feel will serve to "power up" already OP fighters and help players who already had extremely good reactions and setups on the ground. The rest I'll have to see. I appreciate that some attention is still being directed to the game this late into the life cycle.

The jumping switch change is about making the rear version have some niche. Unlike the lead version, it lacks combos. So, in order to stand out for bleedthrough, it needed a bleedthrough buff. Now you can deal some pretty decent damage through the block, with the rear jumping switch by itself, due to sheer bleedthrough.

[ZombieRommel]

Quote: Originally Posted by Solid_Altair

The jumping switch change is about making the rear version have some niche. Unlike the lead version, it lacks combos. So, in order to stand out for bleedthrough, it needed a bleedthrough buff. Now you can deal some pretty decent damage through the block, with the rear jumping switch by itself, due to sheer bleedthrough.

Good to know, always nice to see niche strikes get some utility. I think a fair number of striking specialists have this also.

[Pappy Knuckles]

This is a nice surprise, I'm glad that I checked the site today. Time to fire the game up...

[ZombieRommel]

The stun changes are feeling very, very, very good. Basically if someone gets a lucky rock, it's a lot harder for them to snowball it into a finish or a huge lead. Whereas if you outplay someone consistently on the feet, the hole gets deeper and deeper for them.

I'm getting rocked a lot less, and I predict someone like MartialMind will be able to go through consecutive matches without ever getting rocked.