Guard breaks and head movement changes.

[RetractedMonkey]

Despite the workarounds that GPD laid out, a good player that holds block against you cannot be guard broken with those methods. They will immediately duck and uppercut, you also can’t bait them into throwing because feints aren’t very effective and you’ll already be in the middle of your combo. If you choose to do it back to them, a body knee war will ensue. It’s trash gameplay when you run into one of these guys and looks even worse.

If the opponent is in clinch range holding block, there needs to be significant bleed through on blocked strikes and even faster guard breakdown. This has roots in realism as well because the farther you are the faster you can respond to strikes and evade. If you’re contending with strikes on your guard that close, you shouldn’t be able to duck that fast.

Holding block should cause a decent slowdown on movement speed, preventing someone from walking you down with the guard up. A 20% reduction seems hefty but fair.

Head movement should also cost stamina. Perhaps the same as a lunge. Right now the meta is either hold block and walk them down or extremely fast paced gameplay of two players guessing lean angles to counter each other. That’s not how real fights look.

To eliminate this, keep the effectiveness of lean counter rocks (they’re almost guaranteed rocks), but double the effectiveness of a shot that counters the lean. Head movement should be a few times per round thing, not the basis of all gameplay. A counter hook against a side lean currently does only stun damage. Devs should switch the damage to an instant rock and if followed up with another hook, at least a severe knockdown. This along with stamina costs makes the gameplay meta far less about head movement counters and more about exchanges of strikes. The costs for head movement and leaning into strikes should be SEVERE.

Currently, there is no exchanging of punches at high level play. If you try to throw a 1-2-3 your opponent will block the first two and duck the hook to counter almost every time. This leads to both players either circling the outside and looking for lean counters on whoever strikes first or the two engaging in high paced back and forth lean guessing.


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Lets all answer this question.

Why don't MOST fighters stand directly in front of each other in real fights?

They don't because the risk of getting knocked out cold increases exponentially the closer you are to each other. They don't because JUST holding high block does not offer anywhere near the protection required to absorb blows repeatedly. Fighters understand, that in real life, you don't need a long combination to break the block.... One perfectly placed straight can pierce through the block and do damage.

This is why we see certain fighters like Justin Gaethje, use a combination of sways, parries and high block to close the distance, stay close to opponents and then fire off combos. Swaying while blocking, gives you the ability to block better, and since we can't block and sway or parry in this game, the strength of the high block, which directly makes walking down opponents easy, is simply not justified.

If you keep your head completely still while walking towards an opponent, you get blown up if they hit you from a distance where they can leverage the full power of their shots. And a fighter can do this without wasting too much stamina.

Another important thing to note is that, a fighter guarding his face or body does not move forward as quickly as a fighter who isn't.

The fact that players can close the distance safely by holding high block until they come face to face + the fact that they don't lose any forward moving speed while guarding their face = Forward pressure being far too easy... much easier than it should be.

This has already been suggested here, but it's important to state it again.

* It should take fewer combinations to break through the block

The thing is, most players who play in this "Stand right in front of your face style" usually advance while holding high block. Making it easier to break their block will AT LEAST solve that issue. That takes away one clear safety net from them.

One of these players could counter with... "Okay but so what? I'll just block sparingly and move my head the rest of the time and counter you while you try to break my block, now what?"

* Apart from running, movement speed should be fastest when the fighter is doing nothing else but simply moving, (Also depending on footwork stats).

Doesn't matter if you're moving and swaying, holding block while moving, throwing moving strikes, none of these should cover more distance than simply moving.

Example 1:

Fighter A is holding block while moving forward.
Fighter B is not holding high block while moving away from fighter A.
Result = Fighter B moves faster than fighter A and is able to keep from being face to face.

Example 2:

Fighter A is ducking and swaying while moving.
Fighter B is simply moving
Result = Fighter B moves faster than fighter A. This way, fighter A can't close distance quickly by simply moving with head movement.

Example 3:

Fighter A is throwing a bunch of forward moving strikes.
Fighter B is moving backward.
Result = Fighter A maybe lands the first strike if he's close enough but whiffs the rest and is unable to chase down fighter B with forward moving strikes.

The goal here is for pressure fighters to FIRST close distance with footwork, trap opponents with footwork first, before throwing shots.

Now, I know that this will also benefit the aggressive fighter, especially when it comes to breaking the block with fewer combos... BUT, if these changes go in and the aggressor is able to get close enough to you to break your block, then he deserves the benefit because he must've used good footwork to trap you, while also avoiding your counters, as opposed to just holding high block and walking you down.

Now the bug with the sustained leans is being fixed. I'm not sure how effective this fix will be so we'll just need to wait and see what that does, but I believe the changes above could potentially solve the issue of fighters standing right in front of you no matter how hard u try to get away from them. If implemented correctly and tested extensively.