Oh lord.... where to begin.
There are a few things I love about the grappling system, but since this thread focuses on what we don't like, i'll just briefly touch on the positives but mostly focus on the negatives.
For me personally, artificial, made up game mechanics will always be inferior to how things actually work in real life. We have some of these artificial mechanics on the feet, but most of them, the worst ones are on the ground and clinch.
Transition Denials:
With transition denials, i think UD3 had the better idea. You didn't NEED to memorize animations to prevent a transition... You simply held the stick to the left or right. Holding the stick as opposed to flicking to stop a transition felt more like actually holding down an opponent/locking your legs to prevent a transition.
Take
full guard bottom for example. In UD3, If you hold the right stick to the left or right, your fighter closes his guard and keeps it close. Any transition attempt to pass the guard will then be stopped. In halfguard it worked thesame way. You hold the stick and your fighter ties up the opponents leg preventing a transition.
For the guy on top, it was thesame. You hold the stick and you physically hold the opponent down, preventing a transition.
This was not only easier for a casual to immediately jump into and understand, but it simply felt better. Ofcourse the system wasn't without flaw, but the actual deny mechanic was better.
In UFC3 though, you have to memorize transitions.... not just that, you have ONE chance to deny a transition or you can't. Is this how transition denies actually work in real life? If a fighter is on his back and you attempt to pass to his left side, but he tries to deny to his right, does he then automatically lose the ability to deny that transition?
I mean i have the brain power to memorize hundreds of animations... that's not the issue. The issue is it shouldn't be this way when a better system could be used... a system that better represents how actual transition denials work.
Transition Fakes:
This one is quite possibly what I hate the most about this game and every other MMA game I've played. I can't for the life of me understand why this is a thing.
If i'm on the bottom, in closed guard, and my opponent pretends to pass my guard to the left, but then passes to the right, EVEN if i bite on it and try to stop his fake, am i really gonna lose the ability to deny the real transition? I mean, i'm not grappler, but is this how it works? Like "Oh no... he pretended to go to the left but he went to the right, whatever shall i do now??".
I'm sure transition fakes happen in real life, but in this game, you cannot compete with a high level player unless you engage in a battle of feints. It's feint city on the ground. And it's no annoying to me because the striking system doesn't ENFORCE feinting like it should, but then on the ground, it's everything.
I've watched high level grapplers in the UFC.... Demian Maia vs Gunner Nelson for one and i didn't see them feinting the heck out of each other and fooling each other. Feinting is a striking thing, a distance thing, not a grappling thing and i hate how much importance it holds over the whole system.
Stamina Management:
In real life, ground battles tend to be chaotic and fast paced. Fighters can attempt one transition over and over again, back to back to back. A fighter gets taken down, he can perform transitions back to back to get back to his feet. But in the game, it's like me making sweet love to my wife or something.
You get one transition denied and your stamina shoots down soooo much so now you gotta sit idle and wait for it to recharge while the guy on top throws weak *** punches at your head.
It shouldn't be like this. I should be able to go for transitions back to back to back and let that affect my long term stamina... not short term. Give us enough stamina on the ground to be very active and not have to take these long annoying breaks watching a stamina bar recharge.
Someone like Aldo immediately wiggles and wiggles and springs back up to his feet once he hits the ground.
I mean look at how chaotic this was. Aldo tried to escape to the left by posting on his left knee, didn't work and he immediately tried again to his right, no break at all to wait for stamina bar to recharge.
Ground and pound:
Ground and pound is incredibly unsatisfying. I'm not just talking about actual damage being done. I'm talking about the animations, how fighters react to getting hit and the fact that you can't actually rock anyone on the ground.
Ground and pound should feel vicious, not feel like the fighter is pulling his punches and just tapping the opponent. I wanna see the arm raise and return quick with follow through.
I mean look at that. You watch that and you immediately feel pity for the dude on the bottom.
In UFC3 though... it's just meh.
No movement on the ground:
Apart from slight movements that happen during a transition, you can't actually move on the ground. You can't push an opponent to the cage, you can't butt scoot to the cage, if you're near the cage you can turn your body away from it if you don't wanna be near it... both fighters just lay where they fell and that's it.
I hate that so much.
That's it for now. I don't wanna make this too long.
I feel like the grappling should be easy to jump into for casuals. Denying and transitioning should be easy to immediately grasp, not involve a crap load of memorizing where you're also fighting the camera.... but then it should have a deeper layer, a layer that involves knowing what transition beats what and that should be the bulk of grappling. I'm sure we'll all dive deeper into this topic but for now, this is why i hate grappling in this game.
It completely kills the fun for me... like completely. Once i get taken down I just know now i gotta sit there and fake with you, wait for stamina to recharge, exchange baby punches with you to gain GA, ugh!. Boring beyond belief.