Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

[Haz____]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

Back to the Nate Diaz shorts fiasco... They originally told us they couldn't change Nates shorts because they would have to redo his ENTIRE character model just to change his shorts. They told us they ~"couldn't juuuust change his shorts only. It was impossible the way their engine works, and the way they built their characters".

Now we have WFA fights in quick fight, and every fighter automatically gets WFA shorts.


So are you telling me you made all new models for every single fighter?

Or were you just lying the entire time, and of course you can just change their shorts.



Things like this is why no one trusts EA. They lie constantly about what they do, and how what they do works.

[GameplayDevUFC]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

Things like this is why no one trusts EA. They lie constantly about what they do, and how what they do works.

No, you assume they lied because you don't have the information to actually know. You like hating EA, probably get validation from other places on the internet for doing so, so ultimately assuming they lied is an easy and gratifying choice for you, even if you're wrong.

[ryangil23]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

Back to the Nate Diaz shorts fiasco... They originally told us they couldn't change Nates shorts because they would have to redo his ENTIRE character model just to change his shorts. They told us they ~"couldn't juuuust change his shorts only. It was impossible the way their engine works, and the way they built their characters".

Now we have WFA fights in quick fight, and every fighter automatically gets WFA shorts.


So are you telling me you made all new models for every single fighter?

Or were you just lying the entire time, and of course you can just change their shorts.



Things like this is why no one trusts EA. They lie constantly about what they do, and how what they do works.

Unless they totally redesigned the models to all have the shorts as part of the model but that seems like a massive waste of time. They’d have to do that for all the different venues which have different shorts so that the game brings up the “kumite model” for example which would have the kumite shorts built into them. Idk, seems like a lot of work that isn’t needed. Maybe I’m wrong on that but don’t know how else they’d have to change his model otherwise.

[Haz____]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

However! I absolutely get heated when people with little insight or understanding of the industry and reality try to speak like they know things they do not, or when they think a very objective matter is subjective and their opinions overrule facts. So here are some amazing things our team has done, that is absolutely true:

+ We have the most complex, deep, and authentic damage, health event, and stamina system a video game has ever seen. Even if the tuning isn't perfect in every scenario, it's mind boggling the amount of detail here.

The most complex & deep health and stamina system a video game has ever seen, and you can still throw 150+ strikes every 3 minutes, and you can still get knocked down 10 times and keep fighting like nothing even happened seconds later....

+ Our roster, and the detail and customization that goes into it is immense. Are there more fighters in the sport that we don't have? Yes. Do we still offer the most accurate representation of the most diverse group of fighters in MMA? Yes, we do.

Did you give Cowboy a beard after everyone freaked out over you using his same model for the last 4 games? Yes, thank you for that. But lets be honest, this is absolutely NOT an area where this game shines. This was in fact my biggest disappointment in UFC 3, and now UFC 4 also. The roster is painfully outdated, with errors, and questionable design choices throughout.

Like why does Tim Means have the body size of a Heavy Weight, when he is a skinny Welterweight? For 3 games in a row now you still haven't fixed this. Uriah Hall had the correct shorts in UFC 3, but in UFC 4 you changed them to some shorts he doesn't wear for some random reason. Bobby Green has had a tatted head for forreeeeever now. Jan Błachowicz hasn't worn board shorts in like 5 years, and he's the friggin champion, and you still have the wrong shorts on him. Tim Elliot has the same model from UFC 1 still, with a hairstyle he hasn't had in like 7 years. I mean these just go on and on like this.

And the roster itself, where are guys like Ryan Hall, Vicente Luque, Geoff Neal, Khalil Rountree, Ciryl Gane, Shane Burgos, Lando Vannata, Aleksandar Rakić, Marlon Vera, Rob Font, and those are just off the top. Those aren't even getting into deep cuts yet.

+ Have we engaged in more casual friendly content, which brings thousands of users both closer to the sport, and also the gaming community? Yes. That's awesome.

That is awesome. What's not awesome is that it comes at a steep price. Convincing a bunch of little kids to buy your game is cool, but at what expense? If it means turning an MMA sports game into a 150 strikes a round arcade brawler, and if it means we get 1000 pieces of goofy cosmetics that have nothing to do with MMA, Combat Sports, or Martial Arts whatsoever, instead of new fighters, moves, and authentic creation options then I'd say we ended up on the wrong side of that deal pretty hard.

Like if you're going make 10,000 pieces of cosmetics why is there not a single BJJ or Judo Gi, a single Muay Thai Mongkol or Pra Jiad. Why not give us some cosmetics that are actually relevant to our sport at least. Why make 500 shirts and not 1 of them actually looks like a real rashguard?? None of this makes any sense.

+ We have created a ton of really fun and interesting visual customization options that a very significant amount of people use and enjoy. We are, at heart, an entertainment industry, and just because you don't get the same value out of this as someone else doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

"Really fun, and interesting".. Boy oh boy, that is HIGHLY subjective, wouldn't you agree? I don't know a single person who asked for Fortnite style cosmetics in their MMA sports sim, especially when the base fighter editor is already so bare bones. How about instead of "fun and interesting", we tried "real, and authentic". EA UFC has 1 of the most outdated character creation engines in modern gaming, and instead of updating it with features players want and expect, you give us gladiator helmets, and light up pants... It's like a bad joke. There's no way you guys can seriously be that out of touch.

[Haz____]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

No, you assume they lied because you don't have the information to actually know. You like hating EA, probably get validation from other places on the internet for doing so, so ultimately assuming they lied is an easy and gratifying choice for you, even if you're wrong.

Answer this:

How did it go from:
"We can't change Nates shorts because they are literally built into his model, and we would have to make an entirely new model."

To:
Every fighter in the game having their Default shorts options, as well as Backyard Jean shorts, Kumite shorts, and WFA shorts?



Because like I said from the start, the shorts were never built into the character models, and that's not how it works.

[Skynet]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

As a software dev myself, I don't doubt majority of your point are honest and I don't follow the EA hating bandwagon but just want talk about the subject where it matters, the game itself, and where you getting problems with the public and you & your team still don't seem to realize.

I'm glad you guys actually took time and look at all the -
some of them most people don't even notice. credit to that

Now on those what you think is +

"+by far the most incredible and technically advanced animation pipeline in MMA history...."

Now this is where you guys still had your heads stuck in the sand, and this kind blind arrogance is exactly why you guys still don't understand why vast majority players hate your game.

The physics animation foundation, the source of all UFC 1-4's problem, where your physics based animation always make action on its own rather than follow players command, this alone is enough to dismiss your claim on "the greatest xxx" horse crap. And your users average review scores told you that. Search on the forum for a bit and you will find everyone and their mother make threads about "the control is so unresponsive", "the input delay is so bad" etc. etc.

No they aren't all casuals, they have the right to not enjoy massive input delay, moves executed on its own or physics triggered donkey werid sceniros that breaks the fight.

honestly speaking, the physics animation pipeline in UFC1-4 is the most broken, buggy, unresponsive dumpster fire that should never existed in a competitive fighting game. In a competitive fighting game like UFC, where players invested alot of their time & emotion, no one would happy to accept the outcome where they got punished for a moves they didn't execute or act much later than intended. again, vastly majority of your players express their feeling through user reviews, not forum whining.

And then, your "players feedback" part, it scares me more, because looks like you people don't scrape data from your own product(the proper way to improve your software where you able to scoop out the real user experience) instead, you decided to listen to simple minded fools who only wish to crate the game into their own style. Do you know the current take down defense success rate? Crucifix position TKO rate? what fighters people use the most? etc?

Lastly I just want say game tested in your limited environment doesn't represent the same experience when it goes live to the public

And most importantly, you don't proclaim you "built the greatest xxx" until vast majority players admit is. Honest, watching players spam side lunge and sway to broke the animation is the most low IQ thing I'ver felt/seen in my entire life. really don't know where you guys got the confident to make this "greatest/most advanced" claim.

In the interest of promoting a more open and honest conversation, I'll entertain you with some of this.

Firstly, we don't use a physics based animation pipeline outside of ragdolls, mate. We use combinations of many animation technologies to get the fighters to move as authentically as they do. While there is a layer of physics involved in that, it's by no means the primary component of the pipeline, but a quality pass on top of an existing animation.

The reason it's one of if not the most advanced animation pipeline is because most other titles don't need the kind of fidelity that we do. Other companies or projects could surely have more advanced pipelines if they really wanted, but the cost of building and maintaining one wouldn't bring significant value to their users given the content in their games. It is warranted in ours, and we've continued to improve it considerably with every iteration of our game. Most titles do not use tech even remotely close to ours.

We use combinations of our RPM tech, which is akin to motion matching or motion fields should you wish to look them up (For Honor had a talk about similar tech a few years ago at GDC), a layer of physics which deviates the animation to try and force contact when the meta deems it necessary (for significantly increased consistency in a competitive fighting space), more layers for target alignment and deviations to account for opponent limb/body position (fighters make micro adjustments to every strike irl based on opponent motion and position), a lot of relative IK for the many body contacts and grappling scenarios, physics collisions to help confirm contact or miss even when the meta was trying to force it (deviated contacts like glancing the shoulder or missing because the body just can't reach in natural ways), layered animations for things like hit reactions & blocking which allow major actions to not be interrupted, physics based animations during ragdoll that then align to target poses as they fall so that we can connect multi-actor scenarios during the diving strikes, and many many other little details that are simply not worth listing...

I understand that users can't have any reasonable insight into how truly deep and complex the systems are that create the games they play, even if they are software devs in their own lives, but as someone who's worked on this game for many years, I do have that insight. So yes, our pipelines really are quite advanced. If you think it falls short in certain areas, you're quite possibly right. There's always room to improve. But that doesn't detract from what it already does incredibly well.


Next point, input delay. Firstly, the animation engine has absolutely nooothing to do with input delay. While the animations themselves can sometimes make people think this because in real life strikes don't come out at blinding speed the millisecond someone thinks about throwing one, the actual inputs are consumed by the system incredibly fast. In fact, we removed delay compared to UFC 3 with the input tap/hold system. We previously had a single frame of input delay due to needing to wait a frame to confirm the double button (uppercut) inputs, but now we have tech to simply start the single button input and change mid-way to the double button action. So mathematically, the input delay is better than UFC 3.

I really think one of the main causes of the feeling of delay is actually users not understanding how their inputs effect the system and the input queue. I would very much like to include some new HUDs in practice mode which give a more traditional fighting game input history, as well as show exactly when an action starts. I think these tools would help a lot of users understand where the system is intentionally not using bad inputs, or when their action did in fact sooner than they thought, but it has a more subtle windup animation, or when their action started but was interrupted/cancelled due to a strike exchange or other input, etc.

This lack of understanding is not the users' fault, to my mind. These are incredibly complex systems that no one could fully decipher from the tools you have now. While it's also above most people's interest, it's a knowledge gap I'd like to bridge somehow.


On to the next! Player feedback! So... you're suggesting that my being here and valuing player feedback not only means we don't look at telemetry, but you're also suggesting that player feedback itself is unreliable, and not what we should listen to when trying to improve the game. Who's side are you on here...

As one of the engineers who has written most of our telemetry (data collection) I am very aware of the gameplay statistics on our game. While I can't share the numbers with you, I can absolutely assure you that we take them into account quite a bit. After all, stats don't lie. They can, however, be misleading and don't give an impression of the fight or experience as a whole. They indicate particular pain points, and can validate theories we have. They are also very good at refuting bogus user feedback we get from uppity users who think they speak for the entire community and don't know how the game works

So, while telemetry is an invaluable tool, it is by no means sufficient in and of itself as the only form of feedback to improve the game. I will continue to elicit feedback from real people about their experience and what, to them, are the parts of the game that they want improved. We will also continue to have focus groups, internal play sessions, community test environments, 3rd party evaluations, design reviews, and many many other forms of feedback and quality generation. And you can rest assured we're pretty good at filtering through the nonsense at this point.

[Skynet]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

Talking to your points Haz (these long quotes are just....getting too long)

Your thoughts around the lack of authentic MMA-themed visual customizations strikes me as strange too. While I know there are some issues with texture and physics and rendering around things like a gi, there were similar issues with the crazy masks and fur simulation so... I can't say it wasn't an option but I'm not part of why the choices were made the way they were.

I'd also love to see that kind of content focused on. I think the Rebok deal with the UFC itself really impacted this, and drove the creative vision of the team away from the more authentic options? Not sure. Just my 2 c.


""Really fun, and interesting".. Boy oh boy, that is HIGHLY subjective, wouldn't you agree?"

Yes, it is absolutely subjective. It's for a user base that you're not a part of. And here's one of those wonderful places that telemetry comes into play. People are using this stuff. A lot.


"I don't know a single person who asked for Fortnite style cosmetics in their MMA sports sim,"

No one asked for Fortnight either. And yet, it's one of the biggest games in the industry's history. Sometimes games have to branch out and try new things and seek new opportunities to give players an experience they didn't know they'd enjoy. Sometimes they don't enjoy that option. It's part of our job to try.

[Blackman316]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

And here's one of those wonderful places that telemetry comes into play. People are using this stuff. A lot.

To be fair: if you would put a turd on their face as a prop, they would use it. They use it because it's there. Doesn't mean that it's well designed. You don't have a clue why they are using it, so why claim to? But for the record: the cosmetics is probably a good move. I also don't notice many people complaining, apart from those that think that somehow 'this' made that their favorite feature isn't in the game. I can't imagine ever using the animated shorts, but I get that many people will.



But it's amusing reading all your posts and then watching high level gameplay.




Equally amusing to read that "you just don't get how inputs work", while the game's notorious for hiding information from players (despite GPD's efforts).

[Kingslayer04]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

@Haz,

I don't know how you can come on here and complain after admitting you caved in and bought the game the other day.

Even though there's been plenty of information everywhere: videos, reviews, user comments, even getting the chance to play before buying, let's say one could eventually find something about the gameplay enticing and end up buying the game (and then end up being disappointed in how it actually plays). I could understand that. I could also understand lowering your standards, or buying the game at a price that they deem suitable for what it offers, while acknowledging that from that point onwards they can't go online and complain.

But you admitted you had a feeling the roster was much improved, even though you knew it wasn't. That is absolutely ridiculous. The roster is the most objective part of the game that you can check at any time with minimal effort on your part, and that's what fooled you? You buying the game just reeks of desperation and only served to prove EA right - they have the hardcores in the bag no matter what they choose to do. And after buying the game, you're out here, being super passionate about a bunch of things, without realising none of what you're saying matters one jot at this point. I mean it doesn't anyway (that applies to pretty much all of us), but now it doesn't more than ever.

You gave them their money for what you hope the game is, rather than what it really is. They have your money. What do you hope to achieve with these posts?

[GameplayDevUFC]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

To be fair: if you would put a turd on their face as a prop, they would use it.

Which do you think would be used more, a turd on the face or...Elias Theodoru?

(hint, it's the turd. And that's why there's been a shift to adding metaphorical turds into the game)

[Skynet]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

Equally amusing to read that "you just don't get how inputs work", while the game's notorious for hiding information from players (despite GPD's efforts).

No no, that was part of my own point. Even to someone who built this stuff, it's complex. You guys aren't at fault at all, and our lack on on-boarding often is. Again, this is why I've pushed so much content into practice mode where I can.

Full acceptance that the room for improvement on this lies with us, just trying to educate people that the likely problem lies in lack of understanding and not bugs. It is possible for people's problems in this area to go away on their own merits, but we don't make that easy for them...

[MeowingForVengeance]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

I would very much like to include some new HUDs in practice mode which give a more traditional fighting game input history, as well as show exactly when an action starts.

Man, that would be amazing. I never could've learned how to play Tekken without being able to see exactly how my inputs were being read by the game. First step in cleaning up sloppy inputs is recognizing sloppy inputs, and that's extremely hard to do by feel alone while you're playing.

[Blackman316]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

Again, this is why I've pushed so much content into practice mode where I can.

And the mode has improved a lot because of it: you can train specific positions nown and fighters wear training gear (making it immersive). Obviously the forums aren't going to be full of people saying "good job on the tutorial now", but the absence of complaints regarding the tutorial/instructions must tell you that it's improved and people are happy with it. But me pointing that out isn't getting the community anywhere.

And I would love a HUD that tells me when to input, because - as I've mentioned many times - I can't seem to do a judo counter (once in 50 times, yes) to takedowns despite correctly performing the inputs.

Based on my limited perception, the complaints either boil down to 1. metagaming (clinch abuse without any efficient counter) and 2. cutting of features/content. 3. MP bugs. With some tweaking and testing, this should be improved.

[OrangeSky]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

One nitpick I have about career. I just finished a character that spent 9 years as pro and coach Davis dresses EXACTLY the same at every fight... his dark blue shirt, camo pants and white tennis shoes. The devs at EA couldn’t at least change his outfit so that he doesn’t wear the same one for 9 years?

And the names... you guys couldn’t have put coding into the game so that Buffer says our characters FULL name instead of just his/ her last name? I mean Buffer doesn’t even say our nick name... just our last. It’s kind of ridiculous.

Edit - I might sound petty but jeez... I mean the little things in this game have me scratching my head.

[Kingslayer04]

Re: Are the forums indicative of the popularity of UFC 4?

@Skynet

I want to ask you about certain decisions that were made regarding the game, maybe you'll be able to tell me why they were made.

1) why is the player restricted in the manner that they are online? I remember watching a video featuring Hayes saying people's CAFs scale depending on the weight class so that the class doesn't interfere with anything. Why, then, does the game decide what classes are available instead of the player? Who benefits from that?

2) Why does the game constantly match up players who are lightyears apart from each other in terms of skill? Was it intentional? If so - what's the logic behind that?

I'd really like to know why that is.