The recovery system without a doubt needs adjustments for EA UFC 3. Especially now knowing all parts of the body recovered the same. That recovery system needs to be separated. In order to make a fight feel like the Stephens vs Melendez fight in EA UFC 2 you literally needed a fighter with high leg power, as well every perk that adds more damage from leg kicks.
I've done it before to people online, where it felt like they didn't recover much because I was able to keep leg kick rocking them every round. Leaving both legs red so regardless if they were in orthodox or southpaw stance it made no difference.
There's just so many factors to the damage system such as attributes, perks, move level(LV 1-LV 5), combo multiplier, low or no stamina, and counters that it makes it hard sometimes to do certain things with fighters on EA UFC 2 if they don't have high levels moves and perks plus high attribute stats.
The representation of body strike ko's isn't bad. They do happen like in this video. Not as often but definitely a type of finish.
https://youtu.be/QfTqzOVmiBo
UFC Undisputed 3 allowed alot of rocking and knockdowns to occur from body strikes before it made it a tko that stops the fight. The only body shots in UFC Undisputed 3 that didn't allow many rocks/ knockdowns were the cage rocked positions.
What EA UFC 2 lacks though is like you said about Endurance. EA UFC 2 lacks any long lasting effects from receiving continuous body shot damage. The representation of this is nothing like we have in UFC Undisputed or any of the Fight Night games.
I wish the EA UFC series had a more detailed fight total screen that way we could better assess the damage and recovery output.
Details such as how many head shots thrown/landed, body shots,
Head kicks, body kicks, leg kicks,
Clinch punches/elbows, clinch knees, Ground and pound strikes.
Counters. Significant/ Power
Time advancing, clinch attempts/ landed, clinch passes, throws attempted/ landed. Takedowns attempted/ landed. If we could see such detailed stats we might be able to understand better what needs adjustments.
EA UFC 2 has alot of hidden stats that are not shown on the fight totals screen. Stats which only can be seen when mike and Joe Rogan say at the start of the next round let's see the total # of leg kicks landed so far, or total strike land percentage, total # of body shots landed, or time advancing, etc etc. I noticed that and wondered how come those stats aren't viewable in the fight totals screen.