Buff Dan Hooker.

[aholbert32]

Quote: Originally Posted by tomitomitomi

2K doesn't downplay JJ Reddick's shooting stats because he hasn't done it at the highest level (finals etc). We can still observe that he is very proficient at it even if it is against lesser teams. You can easily inspect fighters' physical attributes (KO power, health and stamina) even if they are not facing the best fighters. Francis Ngannou has the highest power stat in the game even though he hasn't knocked out anyone who is known for their chins because it is obvious from watching that he can generate a lot of power. Stipe's resume of guys he has knocked out is much better but no one would argue Stipe should have higher power rating than Ngannou. The game in general is pretty generous with the power stat for KO artists (Perry, Lewis, Lineker, Stephens etc). Yet for some reason cardio machines and extremely resilient guys do not get the same love. I'd say if a fighter beats high levels guys (Your Medeiros example) then he should get more buffs across the board to reflect his technical skills but physical attributes like KO power should be given more generously even if it isn't a brutal KO against top 3 opponent.

That analogy doesnt completely work. The highest level isnt the Finals...its the NBA. The argument that others are trying to make is that simply because fighters are in the UFC that means that they are at a certain level. Pretty much what Retracted wants is an elite level (of very few fighters)....a mid level where pretty much every fighter is in...a bad level (with over the hill fighters and people like Punk). I on the other hand think that there is an elite level (with alot more people in it depending on the division) and many levels between the elite and the truly bad. I think that someone like Evan Dunham is a solid fighter who would get destroyed by the elite like Conor or Ferguson, beaten by fighters on the next level like Barbosa and have a tough fight against someone like Jim Miller.

Even using your analogy, I dont agree. One issue is that with the NBA vs. UFC is that when analyzing NBA players, you have wayyyyy more data and games to use to give a player stats. A fair comparison would be someone like Andre Ingram. I'm sure you are asking who?

Ingram was a rookie who played 2 games for the Lakers last year and had a huge game against the Rockets. He made 55% of his 3s in those two games.

Now 2k wouldnt just look at those stats and those games and say "The guy can shoot. Lets give him a 94 in 3 point shooting". They would likely say "The guy looked good in those 2 games. But he was playing a Rockets team that was resting its players and a Clippers team that was tanking. He can shoot but lets be conservative and give him an 87."

I also dont completely agree with your Medieros idea. Lets say Yancy beat Dustin Poirier by first round guillotine in the first 2 minutes....why should I buff him "across the board"? He beat an elite fighter but he beat him quick and only showed a good OTB and Sub O. Why should I buff his striking? Why should I buff his stamina based off of that win?

Last thing, I really appreciate the input you guys give on stats. I dont always agree with it but I read it all.

[Phillyboi207]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

That analogy doesnt completely work. The highest level isnt the Finals...its the NBA. The argument that others are trying to make is that simply because fighters are in the UFC that means that they are at a certain level. Pretty much what Retracted wants is an elite level (of very few fighters)....a mid level where pretty much every fighter is in...a bad level (with over the hill fighters and people like Punk). I on the other hand think that there is an elite level (with alot more people in it depending on the division) and many levels between the elite and the truly bad. I think that someone like Evan Dunham is a solid fighter who would get destroyed by the elite like Conor or Ferguson, beaten by fighters on the next level like Barbosa and have a tough fight against someone like Jim Miller. Even using your analogy, I dont agree. One issue is that with the NBA vs. UFC is that when analyzing NBA players, you have wayyyyy more data and games to use to give a player stats. A fair comparison would be someone like Andre Ingram. I'm sure you are asking who? Ingram was a rookie who played 2 games for the Lakers last year and had a huge game against the Rockets. He made 55% of his 3s in those two games. Now 2k wouldnt just look at those stats and those games and say "The guy can shoot. Lets give him a 94 in 3 point shooting". They would likely say "The guy looked good in those 2 games. But he was playing a Rockets team that was resting its players and a Clippers team that was tanking. He can shoot but lets be conservative and give him an 87." I also dont completely agree with your Medieros idea. Lets say Yancy beat Dustin Poirier by first round guillotine in the first 2 minutes....why should I buff him "across the board"? He beat an elite fighter but he beat him quick and only showed a good OTB and Sub O. Why should I buff his striking? Why should I buff his stamina based off of that win? Last thing, I really appreciate the input you guys give on stats. I dont always agree with it but I read it all.

Just regarding your 2k example. They wouldn’t consider the opposing team when considering 3pt rating. They’d look stuff like how heavily contested he was, whether he was assisted and overall volume.

Hitting 5 heavily contested 3s is just as impressive whether it’s against the Celtics or against the Pistons.

That’s kinda the main point I think a lot of people are getting at. Guida’s stamina translates no matter who he is fighting. Elkins will be tough AF no matter who he is fighting. Dunham would be able to out work Mcgreggor if he managed to make a grappling match. In game tho Connor is only -2 grapple stamina and his bottom game is only -2 Dunham’s top game.

And I know you werent asking me but I think a situation like Yancy beating Dustin like that would depend on what was shown in those limited minutes.

For instance Joanna vs Rose 1. Rose displayed great footwork and solid power in that limited time. When higher tier guys get finished quickly there’s usually a lot of stuff going on in a short time. Cub vs Moicano (I know i keep bringing him up because he’s underrated in game right now) Moicano displayed fantastic footwork, great durability, and Cub is no joke on the ground but looked like he was drowning against Moicano.

But look at their rating after the fight

Swanson has +3 strike speed, +2 accuracy, +4 power, +1 footwork,
Only -1 bottom game

You’d think Swanson would dominate on the feet, and they’d be roughly even on the ground. But in reality Swanson was reacting to every jab. Moicano shrugged off everything including a flush right hand from Swanson.

[tomitomitomi]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

That analogy doesnt completely work. The highest level isnt the Finals...its the NBA. The argument that others are trying to make is that simply because fighters are in the UFC that means that they are at a certain level. Pretty much what Retracted wants is an elite level (of very few fighters)....a mid level where pretty much every fighter is in...a bad level (with over the hill fighters and people like Punk). I on the other hand think that there is an elite level (with alot more people in it depending on the division) and many levels between the elite and the truly bad. I think that someone like Evan Dunham is a solid fighter who would get destroyed by the elite like Conor or Ferguson, beaten by fighters on the next level like Barbosa and have a tough fight against someone like Jim Miller. Even using your analogy, I dont agree. One issue is that with the NBA vs. UFC is that when analyzing NBA players, you have wayyyyy more data and games to use to give a player stats. A fair comparison would be someone like Andre Ingram. I'm sure you are asking who? Ingram was a rookie who played 2 games for the Lakers last year and had a huge game against the Rockets. He made 55% of his 3s in those two games. Now 2k wouldnt just look at those stats and those games and say "The guy can shoot. Lets give him a 94 in 3 point shooting". They would likely say "The guy looked good in those 2 games. But he was playing a Rockets team that was resting its players and a Clippers team that was tanking. He can shoot but lets be conservative and give him an 87." I also dont completely agree with your Medieros idea. Lets say Yancy beat Dustin Poirier by first round guillotine in the first 2 minutes....why should I buff him "across the board"? He beat an elite fighter but he beat him quick and only showed a good OTB and Sub O. Why should I buff his striking? Why should I buff his stamina based off of that win? Last thing, I really appreciate the input you guys give on stats. I dont always agree with it but I read it all.

I would argue NBA has a bigger skill gap between the elite players and the bench warmers than UFC. Pundits and fans put much more emphasis on LeBron's finals performances than his regular season games whereas other guys are rated almost purely based on their regular season because they're not at that level yet and that is fine.

UFC guys perform less frequently than NBA players which gives you a smaller sample size but it also makes each fight more important. I don't think many people would complain if John Dodson smashed Rivera tonight and got a big buff that made him ranked-worthy as long as he isn't the best character in the game. If he loses his next fight you can drop him down a bit again. Jeremy Stephens getting +1 in Accuracy, Blocking and Footwork is a marginal buff. Pretty sure 2K gives more meaningful buffs on a weekly basis. You can't really do the "That was a good performance but let's see if it was just a good day" when the guy may not fight again for a while.

I should've been more specific about the Medeiros example. What I meant to say is that if Moicano/Medeiros/Whoever comes and just outstrikes an opponent then he should get buffs to many of the striking stats (accuracy etc) to reflect his improvement as a technical fighter. Those stats should be more reliant on your opposition because it is easier to look good against inferior competition. Power should be rated purely based on hurting opponents with less emphasis on opposition quality.

Roy Nelson is a good example. He didn't fail to knock out DC/JDS/Stipe/Overeem/Barnett because his power didn't carry over to the highest level but because he wasn't skilled enough to land those strikes. Yet, whenever he fought an inferior fighter, he landed the overhand and won. If he landed the top guys with those punches they would have gone out as well. He is still one of the hardest hitting HWs of all time even though Werdum rocked Reem and he didn't.

edit: About balance. My thing has always been giving fighters identity. Right now there is no reason to use characters like Dustin Poirier over Conor. I would say Conor is a better striker and has better chin but Poirer is a better/proven grappler and has better cardio. Therefore more aggressive players who don't mind grappling/want to follow up on ground could use Poirier. Conservative players could then use Conor and slow the fight down / avoid grappling. However, Conor just completely smashes him on feet and the little grappling/cardio difference is not meaningful enough. This makes it so that the Poirier player does not win by fighting smartly to his strengths but by simply being better at the game than Conor. He would win even harder if they swapped characters.

This is also troublesome because the match-ups get stale. I don't want to play featherweight in September 2019 and still only see Conor/Aldo/Holloway.

[AeroZeppelin27]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

....and Hooker is in the upper mid tier. I just gave you guys the stats. It also depends on what you do in the fight. People are asking for Hooker grappling buffs off of one fight (Diakese). Thats it. When we have the Knight, Rodriguez and Blanco fights to show that his grappling isnt even topmid tier imo. So the Diakese fight alone is supposed to erase everything we know about his grappling? In a way, his quick finishes have prevented us from being able to justify a grappling buff. Its also not inconsistent. With Costa and Zabit, we had a clean slate. We judged them on all of their current fights AND had a better understanding of how ratings affect the game. They werent just numbers. We knew how those numbers would work. With Hooker, he was 4-3 at the time we did the ratings and hadnt done much to show that he was going to go on the run he did. The ratings were still lower than I wanted but at the time, you could argue that he wasnt even a mid tier guy. His biggest win was over Pearson. There were no consistent ratings updates until really around April and in his next fight WE BUFFED THE HELL OUT OF HIM. 8 categories. So he is a high mid tier striker in the game. You want a grapple stamina buff? Tell me why. Is it just because of Diakese? Ok, well I'm not a big fan of buffing or nerfing someone off of one fight unless we've really gotten it wrong and right now I dont see how that is really wrong based on his fights.

The most recent of those 3 grappling examples was 27th Nov 2016.
Diakiase was Dec 2017. It's the most recent example you have for a reference of his top game, grapple stamina and sub offence, why not use it? Obviously it doesn't warrant a giant rearranging of his grappling stats, but it showed improvements in areas.

Why do we want a grappling buff?
Because his grappling has improved.
Hooker has shown himself to be an intelligent fighter and he had the confidence to attempt to a guillotine on Gil Burns (this isn't justification for a buff, just pointing out he seems to have more confidence in his sub grappling)

But to tangible fact. All we really have to go on is Diakiase, so why not use it. He 100% showed improved grappling/subs in the fight.

As for buffs nerfs off one fight..

Holm, Karolina, JI, Aldo, Liz Carmouche, Zingano, Overeem, moicano, Stephens, Mendes, Curtis Blaydes and many MANY more have all recieved buffs off one fight where they've shown improvement, so I fail to see why this can't apply to Hooker v Diakiase.

Fair enough if you don't like it, and it's obviously not something that would justify large stat boosts but its a valid way to assess someone sometimes, like if its been a year since we've had anything to reference their grappling skills off (Knight was in Nov 2016, Diakiase Dec 2017 IIRC)

I don't think the Diakiase fight warrants MASSIVE improvements, but it showed improved grappling compared to what he currently has, something like +2 top game and +2 subs isn't outlandish given what happened in the fight and its in line with other single fight buffs we've seen.

[AeroZeppelin27]

So Michael Johnson just got his Sub D buffed to 87 for defending the submission attempts of Andre Fili.

That's a 4 point buff for a single fight.

Hooker defended all of Jason Knights submission attempts, hasn't been submitted in the UFC and has 2 submission losses early in his career and has an 84.

Johnson has been submitted 4 times in the UFC (Khabib, Elkins, Madidi, Sass) and 4 tines early in his career and now has an 87 (formerly 83)

Granted, he's faced some stiffer competition.
But he's also been submitted by several people of lower competition too.

Why does he get a 4 point buff for one split Dec but Hooker can't get one for submitting Diakiase and to bring his stats in line with Diakiases in game (in the applicable areas)

Hooker Top Game: 84
Diakiese Bottom game: 86.

Hooker Sub O: 86
Diakiase Sub D:86

Should these be equal? Diakiase basically left his neck out and Hooker cinched a tight guillotine immediately, Diakiase tried for a half a second to tear the arm away, then just basically waited to tap.

I honestly don't know if this is a valid argument for stats or not, conparing the actual in-game stats, so somebody correct me there if I'm wrong here.

But shouldn't Hooker be better than Diakiase in-game in the areas he was clearly better than him in when they fought? His top game shut down Diakiases bottom game, his sub offense seemed superior to Diakiases Sub offence.

I realize we aren't going to see another Hooker buff until he fights next, but I still hope his grappling gets looked at.

Better yet, he uses it a bit vs Barboza so we can get a better idea of where its at.

Also, do we know when Stats were finalized before launch? As Hooker x Diakiase was Dec 20th 2017, so I'd be interested to know its factored into to either fighters.current grappling stats.

[OPSPunk]

Comparing the NBA and UFC is not a good comparison. First off there probably 60 plus shooting guards in the NBA. Are there 60 notable WW in the UFC. If you look at the top 15 in a reach. A top 15 SG against the best can have a good game independent of the other SG. When Till and Woodley faceoff one is going to have a bad day the other a good day.

Also when skills are not even and there are specialists the outcomes are different. If a 3pt specialist plays against Harden. He could score more and maybe his team wins.

If Conor faces Dunham. Dunham is better at grappling however the fact that Conor would Ko him and he would never get to use his grappling. Demonstrates that specialist for the most part can only go so far.

[xtremeba1000]

Quote: Originally Posted by OPSPunk

Comparing the NBA and UFC is not a good comparison. First off there probably 60 plus shooting guards in the NBA. Are there 60 notable WW in the UFC. If you look at the top 15 in a reach. A top 15 SG against the best can have a good game independent of the other SG. When Till and Woodley faceoff one is going to have a bad day the other a good day. Also when skills are not even and there are specialists the outcomes are different. If a 3pt specialist plays against Harden. He could score more and maybe his team wins. If Conor faces Dunham. Dunham is better at grappling however the fact that Conor would Ko him and he would never get to use his grappling. Demonstrates that specialist for the most part can only go so far.

Zabit gets 94 switch stance , Dan gets 80. I think the reason they can't bring him up to where he should be is because of how low he was at launch. They don't want to make huge changes on him because that would mean they were very wrong in the first place. Even if he KO's barboza I think they will only boost a few stats 1-2 points. The issue is how low his stats were off the bat. So now no matter how good he looks they have to look at where his stats started and only increase things slightly.

[aholbert32]

Quote: Originally Posted by xtremeba1000

Zabit gets 94 switch stance , Dan gets 80. I think the reason they can't bring him up to where he should be is because of how low he was at launch. They don't want to make huge changes on him because that would mean they were very wrong in the first place. Even if he KO's barboza I think they will only boost a few stats 1-2 points. The issue is how low his stats were off the bat. So now no matter how good he looks they have to look at where his stats started and only increase things slightly.

Zabit fought last week so we could update him. If you paid attention, we typically only update fighters after a fight (with rare exceptions). Hooker's switch stance isnt one of them.

Regarding your they dont want to be wrong so they only buff 1-2 points....well:

Here are just some examples from the Boise event:

Scoggins: Footwork plus 4 (88), Switch Stance plus 7 (89), Strike Speed plus 3 (87)

Dos Santos: Strike speed minus 4 (93)

Northcutt: Toughness plus 4 (87)

Elkins: Sub D plus 4 (89)

Wineland: footwork plus 3 (89), chin strength plus 3 (87)

Now thats just one event. I could easily find other big jumps if I had the time.

Instead of creating theories about why we havent buffed him more maybe you should just take me at my word.

He was originally rated low because of his performances at FW and attempts to balance the roster for online ranked players.

He then ran off 3 wins over decent talent and we buffed him. We didnt go all out and buff him to a top 10 LW because the devs and I dont think his performances justify that buff. We are willing to wait until the Barboza fight and then reevaluate his stats for the second time.

I understand that some people disagree with that approach. Thats fine but its not likely to change anything. So that should be pretty much the end of the convo.

Its not about us being wrong. We've been wrong alot. That happens when you have 250 fighters to rate and have no idea how the meta of the game is going to play out. We've done our best to address those errors and fix them and will continue to do so.