I only just bought EA UFC 3 a couple of days ago, but have managed to put a fair few hours into it and complete the career mode on Pro. It's a lot better than the Beta I played, but here's some things I want to see for EA UFC 4, if they even make another one.
1. Probably won't happen, but I'd love to see the ground game overhauled again. I much preferred the swoops and stuff from UD3 and EAUFC1. It felt more interactive.
2. I hate the meta-game that goes on for the ground game. Because of the grapple advantage system, there's way too much unrealistic stalling. Like, if the A.I gets you in full mount and postures up, half the time they'll just wait there for you to move or whatever. Compared to UD3, where when they posture up it's this frantic exciting moment, it just feels lacking.
3. Some really weird looking subs. The arm bar from top mount for example. In fights, you usually see the top fighter step over and sit into the armbar, but in EA UFC3, they do some weird straight arm-bar thing that you never see in real life.
Some weird positions on the ground too. The side saddle for example. How often do you actually see that in an MMA fight? I'm thinking not much.
I'm not a fan of the sub mini game at all. I know one day we'll probably get transition based subs, and that'll be great, but I feel like both UD3 and EA MMA had better subs systems. EA MMA, if I remember rightly had different ones for chokes and joint attacks which was nice.
4. Some of the take-downs look stupid. There's no other way to say it. They're usually the power ones. There's that one where they sort of step out to the side and sweep out your legs. It looks like a pro wrestling move almost.
5. Too many animations take way too long. I hate it when I stuff a takedown and it goes into that long-winded anim of my fighter sort of pulling them up and then pushing down into a sprawl position. It's so repetitive and slow. A lot of the takedown and TDD anims are like this. In UD3 they're all quick and realistic. You can do that double leg that drives them back. In EA UFC 3, the double leg looks more like a reactive takedown and just dumps them on the spot.
What's weird though, there is that one TDD anim where it is like a really quick snap down sprawl. I don't seem to see it often, but it looks great. There's some other fast takedowns I've seen that look awesome too. I think it's when you slip strikes or something, but they get taken down quick. Again, I hardly get them to happen.
6. I work as a game designer. One of the most important things to me is outcome design. If the outcome of a game's core loop isn't satisfying, it greatly reduces the chances of a player coming back to play the loop again.
This is probably the major problem for me at the moment with EA UFC 3. I generally love the part where I'm just on the fight, looking for openings, feinting, etc. The exchanges are all great as well. I think this particular part of the gameplay completely blows UD3 and any other MMA game away.
But again, the final outcome of all this ruins it for me. K.O's don't look realistic. Half the time it looks as if the KO'd fighter got hit by a shotgun. The force they snap around in seems totally off. Did EA UFC1 have non-ragdoll KO anims? I feel like it did and they seemed way more realistic to me.
I'd love to see some better TKO scenarios. They feel really lackluster as is. I didn't realize they added the TKO's against the cage. That's a nice addition, but it seems like this is by far the main KO I see.
All the other TKO scenarios seem odd. The fighters look odd when they transition into them compared to UD3, where they seem to just lunge on them and go straight into it.
There isn't enough of these TKO positions either. I loved in UD3 how you could do it standing against the cage and eventually put them down. That's pretty common in MMA fights.
UD3 had TKO positions from side control, back mount, back side control, etc, which are really common in MMA fights. Back side control especially.
Defending in these TKO positions is bad as well. Just mashing left and right on the stick doesn't really involve any skill, and for the attacker its the same. Mashing punch takes no skill either. UD3 did this perfectly I thought.
The actual strikes thrown for a TKO look weird as well. There's no drive through at all. It looks as if the attacker is just making impact and then quickly snapping their arm back.
Again, the outcome of a match needs to be satisfying for me. The vast majority of fights in the UFC end in what is essentially a TKO, that is, the attacker knocking their opponent down and following up with some strikes. This needs to look and feel so much better than it is, as well as having some actual skill to it whether attacking or defending.
Anyway, that's my novel written, for anyone that cares. Looking forward to seeing how GPD and the devs iterate on the next installment.
1. Probably won't happen, but I'd love to see the ground game overhauled again. I much preferred the swoops and stuff from UD3 and EAUFC1. It felt more interactive.
2. I hate the meta-game that goes on for the ground game. Because of the grapple advantage system, there's way too much unrealistic stalling. Like, if the A.I gets you in full mount and postures up, half the time they'll just wait there for you to move or whatever. Compared to UD3, where when they posture up it's this frantic exciting moment, it just feels lacking.
3. Some really weird looking subs. The arm bar from top mount for example. In fights, you usually see the top fighter step over and sit into the armbar, but in EA UFC3, they do some weird straight arm-bar thing that you never see in real life.
Some weird positions on the ground too. The side saddle for example. How often do you actually see that in an MMA fight? I'm thinking not much.
I'm not a fan of the sub mini game at all. I know one day we'll probably get transition based subs, and that'll be great, but I feel like both UD3 and EA MMA had better subs systems. EA MMA, if I remember rightly had different ones for chokes and joint attacks which was nice.
4. Some of the take-downs look stupid. There's no other way to say it. They're usually the power ones. There's that one where they sort of step out to the side and sweep out your legs. It looks like a pro wrestling move almost.
5. Too many animations take way too long. I hate it when I stuff a takedown and it goes into that long-winded anim of my fighter sort of pulling them up and then pushing down into a sprawl position. It's so repetitive and slow. A lot of the takedown and TDD anims are like this. In UD3 they're all quick and realistic. You can do that double leg that drives them back. In EA UFC 3, the double leg looks more like a reactive takedown and just dumps them on the spot.
What's weird though, there is that one TDD anim where it is like a really quick snap down sprawl. I don't seem to see it often, but it looks great. There's some other fast takedowns I've seen that look awesome too. I think it's when you slip strikes or something, but they get taken down quick. Again, I hardly get them to happen.
6. I work as a game designer. One of the most important things to me is outcome design. If the outcome of a game's core loop isn't satisfying, it greatly reduces the chances of a player coming back to play the loop again.
This is probably the major problem for me at the moment with EA UFC 3. I generally love the part where I'm just on the fight, looking for openings, feinting, etc. The exchanges are all great as well. I think this particular part of the gameplay completely blows UD3 and any other MMA game away.
But again, the final outcome of all this ruins it for me. K.O's don't look realistic. Half the time it looks as if the KO'd fighter got hit by a shotgun. The force they snap around in seems totally off. Did EA UFC1 have non-ragdoll KO anims? I feel like it did and they seemed way more realistic to me.
I'd love to see some better TKO scenarios. They feel really lackluster as is. I didn't realize they added the TKO's against the cage. That's a nice addition, but it seems like this is by far the main KO I see.
All the other TKO scenarios seem odd. The fighters look odd when they transition into them compared to UD3, where they seem to just lunge on them and go straight into it.
There isn't enough of these TKO positions either. I loved in UD3 how you could do it standing against the cage and eventually put them down. That's pretty common in MMA fights.
UD3 had TKO positions from side control, back mount, back side control, etc, which are really common in MMA fights. Back side control especially.
Defending in these TKO positions is bad as well. Just mashing left and right on the stick doesn't really involve any skill, and for the attacker its the same. Mashing punch takes no skill either. UD3 did this perfectly I thought.
The actual strikes thrown for a TKO look weird as well. There's no drive through at all. It looks as if the attacker is just making impact and then quickly snapping their arm back.
Again, the outcome of a match needs to be satisfying for me. The vast majority of fights in the UFC end in what is essentially a TKO, that is, the attacker knocking their opponent down and following up with some strikes. This needs to look and feel so much better than it is, as well as having some actual skill to it whether attacking or defending.
Anyway, that's my novel written, for anyone that cares. Looking forward to seeing how GPD and the devs iterate on the next installment.
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