Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

[1212headkick]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

Imo, the bolded have very little significance in modern day MMA and could be replaced with things like the Cradle, cage sitting, and reverse De La Riva.


The rest look good though!

Thanks my man. Now about that neutral step though 😀. Watch the video I posted by Ernesto Chavez about how it could be used for the pressure fighter as well. And if ya snuck in that Diaz bros thing I personally wouldn’t give a **** about much else.

[bmlimo]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

You mean getting the underhook on the leg in deep half?

No, I don’t know how to explain in English, but it’s about the arm that u have to get free so u can enter in the deep half, like break the hold of your opponent

[Good Grappler]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

I agree with Martial Mind that the Clinch should receive the most attention.

I really want to see the wrestling overall receive the most focus, but the clinch is the best way to do that.

[martialxd]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

Final
no matter what
We need an amazing KO animation

When KO animation makes people bored
It’s all over.

And more ways TKO animation

[burningxspirit]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

Focus on making every fighter feel unique!

[Tyeanisbae]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

One thing a lot of people talk about is how empty the ground game feels with no fluidity. But this is highlighted when coupled with no real threatening submissions on the ground, especially off the back unless they’re reversals or your playing with someone like Souza, Ortega, Maia etc.

They seriously have to revamp submissions. The deeper you go into a submission on this game the easier it is to get out, which is crazy. Unless your one of the few submission specialist characters you can’t really threaten with submissions.

Also you can spam submission attempts. Another thing that’s been ignored. IMO the whole submission system has to be replaced.


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[ragreynolds]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

Striking is in a far better place than the grappling is, so the grappling should be prioritised.

As far as grappling goes, we have the actual ground grappling, submissions, clinch, and wrestling/takedowns.

I think takedowns are probably the strongest aspect of the grappling as it currently is, and the submissions are probably the weakest part.

[RomeroXVII]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

One thing a lot of people talk about is how empty the ground game feels with no fluidity. But this is highlighted when coupled with no real threatening submissions on the ground, especially off the back unless they’re reversals or your playing with someone like Souza, Ortega, Maia etc.

They seriously have to revamp submissions. The deeper you go into a submission on this game the easier it is to get out, which is crazy. Unless your one of the few submission specialist characters you can’t really threaten with submissions.

Also you can spam submission attempts. Another thing that’s been ignored. IMO the whole submission system has to be replaced.


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

I agreed with everything other than spamming sub attempts. It's not like they can't be denied and that it doesn't hurt their stamina if it gets denied as well.

I believe the striking is almost perfect, we just need parries against straight strikes, a cooldown period for missed parries to kill parry 'spam' so we don't have Neo in the Matrix like in UFC 2. Add in a power modifier and unique fighter animations and we're set.

The ground game and clinch NEED to be revamped for sure, not just for competitiveness but for immersion as well.

[bmlimo]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

I agreed with everything other than spamming sub attempts. It's not like they can't be denied and that it doesn't hurt their stamina if it gets denied as well.

I believe the striking is almost perfect, we just need parries against straight strikes, a cooldown period for missed parries to kill parry 'spam' so we don't have Neo in the Matrix like in UFC 2. Add in a power modifier and unique fighter animations and we're set.

The ground game and clinch NEED to be revamped for sure, not just for competitiveness but for immersion as well.

I could say striking house is build, they just need to put things in order, stamina, footwork, power and defense... nothing big deal... a revamp in grappling is needed

[Phillyboi207]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

I think we can all agree the 3 biggest weaknesses of UFC 3 were

The clinch
Submissions
Ground n pound

If they revamp these 3 and add new animations/strikes/positions(seated cage pls) for everything else I think the gameplay will be 10/10

[WarMMA]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

Thing is they literally have a blueprint in Undisputed 3, which should make it easier. It's not like they are just making an MMA game and have zero example of things that should be going on in a good MMA game. I'm no dev so I have no idea why it takes them so long to add certain stuff to the game, but if they would just add what UD3 had (in the grappling) along with their own great ideas, we'd have a blockbuster MMA title on our hands right now tbh. But they are just so behind in the grappling department in comparison.

[bmlimo]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

I think we can all agree the 3 biggest weaknesses of UFC 3 were

The clinch
Submissions
Ground n pound

If they revamp these 3 and add new animations/strikes/positions(seated cage pls) for everything else I think the gameplay will be 10/10

Nahh, the transition system based on deny isn’t good too, they need to tweak this too, if they gonna put a strong ground and pound they need to change the priorities and add hold as every player will have to defend better in every position... imagine u beeing denyed and beeing ground and pounded with fluidity ... it’s almos instant death

[bmlimo]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

I do agree with everything you've said but the striking is still a ways off from getting to where it should be, especially if it's to match real life meta. For online play, it might be much better than I realise but I often compare it to what I see IRL so there is still work to be done.

Small things need tweaking, here's a list for striking, taking ideas from different people:
- Variety in strikes for the same strike so no two right crosses are the same, a more proficient leg kicker's leg kick will be different than a non-proficient leg kicker. Similarly, a high level thai leg kick and a high level Shotokan leg kick will differ in animation too, even if they're both high level. A dutch leg kick might have the hand position slightly different to follow up with hooks, whereas a thai leg kick might look to clinch or smother so again, there'll be a subtle difference in hand position and body posture.
- Range differences. Currently from what I've seen we have either a shot lands flush, or a shot doesn't land at all. The easy one to think of it a hook. I've yet to see a glancing hook, or a hook that lands well behind the ear, or even whiffs behind the ear. We have either flush connect or miss. The overhand actually connects on the shoulder sometimes so that's cool, but we need a similar thing inplace for hooks, head kicks and a few other strikes that seem to magnetically zap into place, from what I remember. These should have their proper differences in damage too, like where it connects on the head will have a slight difference in temporary damage caused.
- Feints, namely footwork feints, upper body feints using subtle head movement to throw off the opponent, up / down feints if you think of a jabber pretending to go high and switching low, thai leg feints if you think of a guy chambering his knee which could easily turn into a high mid or low kick or a simple leg check. Also, small feints should not be consuming a tonne of stamina. There needs to be a difference between feinting early and strike cancelling in terms of stamina drain.
- Leg checks need to be more timing based, with a larger penalty for the opponent if the timing is perfect and if mistimed, then it shouldn't cause much damage to either person however the defender might spin after, or get slightly off balance, or just not in a position to counter so it ends in a 50:50.
- Stamina drain needs to be more visual. We see a fighters posture change once his stamina goes below a certain threshold, what we need to see is a gradual shift into this state and see this in the strikes he's throwing, not by showing them come out slower initially, but technically there should be faults creeping through, especially for dudes who aren't technical wizards. So things like dropped opposite hand, hand going back slower to chin, deeper breaths after finishing a combo, seeing the mouth open over time, less range on the head movement, slower countering out of the block, a general fading of the fighter should happen and be visually noticeable.
- Momentum based KOs. We do have this at times, such as when someone leans into a shot, but we don't really have this enough when it comes to moving your feet. You can walk into a cross punch and take similar damage to standing stationary and taking a cross punch, from what I see. Might be mistaken, but do they calculate the direction when it comes to damage? I know side to side movement does, as you notice it on body kicks, but the vulnerability moving forward doesn't seem quite there, whereas on head movement, the vulnerability is excessive, especially considering it doesn't take into account how fast you're moving your head off center. Like a quick slip into a hook is going to hurt more than a slower slip into a hook, just because of the physics. Similarly, moving forward quickly into a punch is going to hurt more than plodding forward into a punch.
- Head movement sophistication and giving looks. We currently can't really give looks the way we should be able to, especially with boxers. It's either, stay dead center, or slip all the way. Those inbetween center and 100% lean states need to exist so we can give looks, and do moves properly like the pull counter for example, which has a subtle lean forward, then a sudden pull back. Looks are crucial for boxer types and Anderson Silva. Side to side sways, disrupted ryhthms, you can't really do the Anderson Forest Griffin fight without it. Also, the short term stamina drain would need to reflect this. I'm sorry but it doesn't kill your stamina to move your head the way the game suggests. Even my fat arse can do it IRL, so imagine how effortless it can be for dudes like Adesanya, Anderson, Robbie Lawler.
- Blocks need to be a part of head movement too but reduce the range you can move your head. Put your hands up and try to move your head. Then put your hands to your hips and try to move your head. The first is more laboured than the second but serves a purpose namely, protection. It's slightly more geared towards slipping shots and throwing hooks or initiating a high clinch whereas hands down head movement is all about faking out your opponent and counter punching from the waist, with snappy straights and uppercuts. More about flowing.
- Onto the next point, stance switches midfight namely hands up, hands down, for dudes like Anderson Silva, Jon Jones etc. Dudes who are known to give different looks and vary it up. Jon Jones might hold his hands close to his chin like a Tyson boxer or reach his arms way out to try and grab your glove / disrupt your hands and come in with a clean elbow once he has trapped them. Again, this should be possible. Yoel Romero might put his hands out to try and hold yours then throw a flying knee off it.
- Next thing is, the wind up phases for things like flying knees and the jab to the body are really laboured when thrown on their own, where other strikes come out ridiculously fast when combo'd for example the uppercut or hook off the overhand comes out like a bullet, when your momentum isn't even ready to throw that shot that quickly, and you still get rewarded full damage for it. Combos should be about momentum, if thrown with speed then clearly you haven't sunk your hips into it and that's the thing with mocapping on pads or even worse shadowboxing, you aren't really throwing everything with the vicious KO intent that the combos ingame suggest they are. So what we need is a toning down of the combo system altogether. The speed should not reach the speeds they are. What needs to happen is, the combo comes out at the same speed the player pushes the buttons. If the player presses the jab cross hook really fast, then the fighter doesn't put their hips into it and it's much more pitter patter but the purpose being it changes the timing of his combo, however if the player inputs it at a smarter pace, then the fighter does have time to adjust his hips. This would really up the combos and feel of the combos. Then what you need to do is instead of restricting dudes from throwing certain combos, slightly adjust the animations so one dudes leg kick to body kick will look like Elias Theodoro whereas another dudes would look like Israel Adesanya's. Choppy vs smooth, and that's why you don't want to throw that combo with Elias as you're going to get countered. Not because you can't but because you really shouldn't, like Weidman's spin back kick. Just don't.
- And of course, we need a power modifier. At this stage, even scrapping R1/RB is more desirable than having nothing, but to be honest, having RT as the power modifier, and depending on how far you push RT in your fighter will put that much emphasis into that punch. A stance modifier could be handy too, so you can deliberately lean on your back leg for example, if you want to throw a big overhand, or cockyour right hand if you're Anthony Johnson to throw that big straight, or turn sideways slightly if you're Barboza to throw that nasty spin kick. All those positions would take away from other aspects of their game like exposing them for leg kicks, reducing range on certain strikes but open them up for other things too like Barboza could throw a fast side kick off his bladed stance.
- Parrying as you mentioned, where it doesn't lock either fighter inplace. These parries when performed with head movement would just get your arms in the way of a strike, as you've seen dudes like DC do where he'll raise his shoulder and arm and lean in the opposite direction to make the shot land on his arm / shoulder / upperback and thus a deflection. Oh, perhaps deflection is a better word to use. But certainly parrying with the lead hand vs Southpaws, and parrying jabs needs to be a thing, as in the pat down parry. Then parrying certain kicks like the teep would be a push away parry, which would cause the kicker to have to either spin and throw an elbow if their fighter has that level of dexterity or return to stance and block. Parries can be disrupting, but there are always options even if you get parried, like ducking, blocking with the other hand, throwing a follow up strike with the other hand / limb etc. Parry is not a safe move IRL.
- Blocking needs work too. The Gaethje block is a thing of beauty, with the side block and normal block. I'm not sure how, perhaps with the power modifier button, a player could decide how much to cover up. Do they slightly move their arm to block a shot with the aim of quickly countering or do they really sink down and turtle up for maximum damage mitigation but slow countering? Blocking while moving should definitely be more risky than sitting down into a block, and similarly, we should still be able to move when sitting down however it would be slow, and if we move at the waist the range of head movement would be limited.
- Onto the next point, if a fighter sits down and just turtles up, we should be able to thai clinch them into a fast knee, or pull down one of their hands to deliver a hook, if we have a high level boxer, should even be able to hook over his block. Uppercuts would cut straight through the middle, but he'd be safe against general hooks to the head. Hooks to the body might be a bit easier to land but not as damaging as if he were fully upright. Flying knees would be encouraged. Then the onus would be on the defender to use smart upper body positioning to mitigate the damage. So they could turtle up, imagine near the cage, but lean back slightly if they think a flying knee is coming, thus exposing their mid section for a straight punch or hook, but moving away slightly from uppercuts and head knees. Man, Fight Night Champion had this almost spot on. Why not just take from their books about the upper body positioning, especially static upper body positioning which is nearly non-existent in UFC 3?
- Simultaneous jab & parry, jab & catch, where you'll throw a jab and have your hand ahead of your chin to catch theirs. This is a basic thing taught at an early level. How would it go with the control scheme I'm not sure, perhaps some dudes have this built into their animation. The problem with this being you could eat a hook. Quite a minor thing to add but it popped into mind just now.
- Flipping back to the head movement and just as important, upper body positioning, certain leans should enable better clinch initation or takedown opportunities for both parties. A lean forward, with your head on the opponent like a Diaz might do allows you to rip body shots without worrying about them throwing straight punches at you, and it allows you to grab their head and upper body easier, as you've leaned yourself closer to them. It opens you up for uppercuts though and they might thai clinch you if your posture is too low.
- Punches and kicks should be thrown from wherever they are, for high level dudes like Adesanya or Anderson Silva, who are known to throw punches without pulling their hands back first. You lose power but gain valuable milliseconds. This would make it feel much more dynamic as our characters ingame have their idle stances and moving stances where they will slightly move their hands naturally anyway, imagine being able to throw a quick straight from wherever your hand is, or doing a small taunt then throwing an uppercut as the taunt animation takes your guy's hands low.
- Animations need some work too, some strikes like the hook look too rehearsed and more like shadowboxing when compared to hooks from games like Fight Night Champion. These kinda strikes just don't look like they pack a punch and when a KO happens it isn't believeable. The RT power modifier idea might help with this, allowing your fighter to sink more into a punch before throwing. The follow up turning of the body could be exagurrated more to really give it a baseball pitcher style feel in the strike, and if you whiff then your balance would be upset so you'd have to go straight into a duck or similar head movement to make up for it. IRL, if you throw big looping hooks, you either gotta keep going or put ducks into the mix too. Think about someone like Joe Frazier, constantly ducking with his hooks, this'll keep your balance from going too out of wack. Similarly, you could attempt a sloppy clinch off a whiffed strike, however overall, the advantage would be on the opponent if they've cleverly avoided your strike.
- Nearly done. Leg kicks need a limp to go with them. I don't feel any disadvantage for having eaten a bunch of leg kicks. There needs to be a slowdown of some sort, a visual one anyway, even if there's stuff going on with the stats, I need a visual cue.
- Similarly, health events need greater visual cues after the event, like breathing more deeply, perhaps a look of concern on the fighter's face, some visual changes like footwork looking slightly sloppy etc.
- And furthermore, bleeding needs to be exaggerated further. Fighters should check their blood at times, wipe their face etc. Broken noses need to be a thing, similarly swollen eyes should visually be there, with eyes almost glue shut until the cornerman helps out. Attacking the swollen eye should have it's advantages too, with potential doctor stoppages coming into play and perhaps a reduced block on that side.
- Block breakdown is just an odd concept in itself. Why shouldn't my first strike make it through if I've cleverly sneaked it in? Again, this is where the Gaethje style block could be effective, with a front block and a side block, however combos would need to be human speed for us to actually be able to block in time, and it might just make things more difficult, as you'll have to use the primary forms of defence more often namely, distance, movement direction, reads, hand fighting, positioning, upper body positioning before finally arriving at your block. IRL, if I know a guy has a big rear hand, I'll circle away from it more often than towards it. Here, circling isn't quite accurate in terms of feel so I mostly fight forwards and backwards. Circling well needs to be rewarded for sure, and we do need that neutral stance. Watch the Rory fight from Friday to see, right around round 2 or 3, he does so many small side to side circles, following up with crisp jabs. Was beautiful to see!
- Then small things like sliders could be updated with things like Flash KO frequency, fighter health recovery between rounds, fighter health recovery in the round, punch damage, kick damage, elbow damage, blood frequency & quantity, rock durations, rock severity, punch stamina drain, kick stamina drain, leg kick limp frequency.

So while you guys may be happy with the way the striking is, it still doesn't quite do justice to real life concepts and there is still a ways to go.

Agree with everything and Most of the things are tweaks truly possible to fix

[1212headkick]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

I agreed with everything other than spamming sub attempts. It's not like they can't be denied and that it doesn't hurt their stamina if it gets denied as well.

I believe the striking is almost perfect, we just need parries against straight strikes, a cooldown period for missed parries to kill parry 'spam' so we don't have Neo in the Matrix like in UFC 2. Add in a power modifier and unique fighter animations and we're set.

The ground game and clinch NEED to be revamped for sure, not just for competitiveness but for immersion as well.

We also need Willie pep type footwork to be possible like v stepping and the neutral stance and shuffle step

[Lauriedr1ver]

Re: Considering gameplay, where should the dev team focus the most?

Next thing is, the wind up phases for things like flying knees and the jab to the body are really laboured when thrown on their own, where other strikes come out ridiculously fast when combo'd for example the uppercut or hook off the overhand comes out like a bullet, when your momentum isn't even ready to throw that shot that quickly, and you still get rewarded full damage for it. Combos should be about momentum, if thrown with speed then clearly you haven't sunk your hips into it and that's the thing with mocapping on pads or even worse shadowboxing, you aren't really throwing everything with the vicious KO intent that the combos ingame suggest they are. So what we need is a toning down of the combo system altogether. The speed should not reach the speeds they are. What needs to happen is, the combo comes out at the same speed the player pushes the buttons. If the player presses the jab cross hook really fast, then the fighter doesn't put their hips into it and it's much more pitter patter but the purpose being it changes the timing of his combo, however if the player inputs it at a smarter pace, then the fighter does have time to adjust his hips. This would really up the combos and feel of the combos. Then what you need to do is instead of restricting dudes from throwing certain combos, slightly adjust the animations so one dudes leg kick to body kick will look like Elias Theodoro whereas another dudes would look like Israel Adesanya's. Choppy vs smooth, and that's why you don't want to throw that combo with Elias as you're going to get countered. Not because you can't but because you really shouldn't, like Weidman's spin back kick. Just don't.
- And of course, we need a power modifier. At this stage, even scrapping R1/RB is more desirable than having nothing, but to be honest, having RT as the power modifier, and depending on how far you push RT in your fighter will put that much emphasis into that punch. A stance modifier could be handy too, so you can deliberately lean on your back leg for example, if you want to throw a big overhand, or cockyour right hand if you're Anthony Johnson to throw that big straight, or turn sideways slightly if you're Barboza to throw that nasty spin kick. All those positions would take away from other aspects of their game like exposing them for leg kicks, reducing range on certain strikes but open them up for other things too like Barboza could throw a fast side kick off his bladed stance.
- Parrying as you mentioned, where it doesn't lock either fighter inplace. These parries when performed with head movement would just get your arms in the way of a strike, as you've seen dudes like DC do where he'll raise his shoulder and arm and lean in the opposite direction to make the shot land on his arm / shoulder / upperback and thus a deflection. Oh, perhaps deflection is a better word to use. But certainly parrying with the lead hand vs Southpaws, and parrying jabs needs to be a thing, as in the pat down parry. Then parrying certain kicks like the teep would be a push away parry, which would cause the kicker to have to either spin and throw an elbow if their fighter has that level of dexterity or return to stance and block. Parries can be disrupting, but there are always options even if you get parried, like ducking, blocking with the other hand, throwing a follow up strike with the other hand / limb etc. Parry is not a safe move IRL.
.

Pressing and holding strikes for longer is the way to go for the power modifier imo, it even works perfectly with your combo idea as its about timing rather than set speeds. Combining the two has been the struggle for me but imo this makes sense and is perfect.

Adding more hitboxes along with more ranges is important so strikes can actually land in a lot more areas, this would make it look a will lot better and empathise timing again.

These two changes fix the KO problem that is currently in the game. I mean being unable to KO someone in one clean shot, not talking vulnerability.

To add some skill to parrying make it side specific so you have to counter it. For example your opponent throws a Jab from orthodox and you parry it with your right hand so the party would be RT+Y with strict timing.