EA better start working on a simulation mode!

[Supreme_Bananas]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

We are always trying to balance fun and simulation. We are far more sim than most fighting games on the market but we want to make sure the game remains accessible and fun for the largest group of people possible and playable on a regular controller with a regular TV. Maybe someday everyone will have fancy haptic body suits with resistive feedback so we can actually make you feel tired and KO you in one shot but I suspect that would be a litigious nightmare.

This right here seems to be the crux of the problem to me. No one seems to be able to quite decide which category this game belongs in. Is it a sports simulation game? Is it a fighting game? Is it a mix of both and if so, at what ratio do you mix sport sim and fighting game?

I mean, it doesn't take much to be "far more sim" than Mortal Kombat.

Right now I believe EA is trying too hard to be both at a 50/50 ratio and as a result, it is failing at both. You don't have the fast-paced actions, mixups, stylish combos and super attacks that fighting games offer, yet at the same time it feels way too much like an arcade game for sports simulation fans with several different gauges to manage, 8 knockdowns per fight and an unrealistic grappling system.

What I think EA and the developers need to do is commit to one direction so that it more clearly falls into a set category, and focus on that audience instead of staying lukewarm and just hoping both fighting game and sport sim fans will enjoy it enough, because I think right now neither one does.

[Irish0331]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

With online sliders we could tune it to what we want. A preset or toggle could be like UD3's sim mode. It wasn't radically different, just stamina drained more- things like that. Sim mode doesn't necessarily mean doc stoppages, one hit kos and all that (they could add those offline or in quick fight tho who knows).

UD3 had sim mode and it wasn't like what you're suggesting sim mode would be.

You're right. I'm a 99.9999% offline player so my mind always goes to offline play. Getting online sliders for you guys would probably add a ton of value and change the dynamic of how the game gets played.

[TheRizzzle]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

As far as the stamina goes, I think one of the biggest problems people have is not how quickly or how much it depletes but rather how much it effects the player. No you cannot make a player feel tired, but you can make their punches weaker, slower, make them move slower, give them more exaggerated animations on big whiffs (https://twitter.com/ARomeroXVII/stat...64377090973696), moreso than are currently demonstrated within the game.

This feels like the best approach to replicate stamina.

To make it as basic as possible, every fighter should have a basic math equation. How hard can a fighter go and for how long before they no longer possess the ability to effectively fight, land, defend themselves or potentially knock out an opponent?

The other part is incentives. A lot of fighters IRL, whether tired or otherwise, won't go as hard as a video gamer for a simple reason.

Getting knocked out often hurts and sucks. We have no incentive as gamers NOT TO go for it, whereas IRL there are times where fighters will resign themselves to surviving just to say "yeah I lost, but I didn't get knocked out."

Only way I could see incentivizing that online is to put a heavy premium on not getting finished. So yeah, losing would hurt but getting finished would lose more, otherwise fighters will go for it with no real reason not to.

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[aholbert32]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

This feels like the best approach to replicate stamina.

To make it as basic as possible, every fighter should have a basic math equation. How hard can a fighter go and for how long before they no longer possess the ability to effectively fight, land, defend themselves or potentially knock out an opponent?

The other part is incentives. A lot of fighters IRL, whether tired or otherwise, won't go as hard as a video gamer for a simple reason.

Getting knocked out often hurts and sucks. We have no incentive as gamers NOT TO go for it, whereas IRL there are times where fighters will resign themselves to surviving just to

Only way I could see incentivizing that online is to put a heavy premium on not getting finished. So yeah, losing would hurt but getting finished would lose more, otherwise fighters will go for it with no real reason not to.

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I love this idea but I wonder if most online players would love this. Would it encourage people to “run” and not engage in order to avoid losing by ko. Would this lead to cries that ranked fights aren’t fun.

Again, I think this is a great idea but in anticipating a lot of pushback from comp players if they ever did this.



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[Zyaf]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

I love this idea but I wonder if most online players would love this. Would it encourage people to “run” and not engage in order to avoid losing by ko. Would this lead to cries that ranked fights aren’t fun.

Again, I think this is a great idea but in anticipating a lot of pushback from comp players if they ever did this.



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I think you may see the opposite. Many of the top players, such as Suave Jamie or EdParker, push you back just to bait out an overextension and punish you, although this isn't the most reliable thing due to the ability to recover after a big combination whiff. It works both ways, good defensive fighters will be able to force whiffs from pressure fighters and good offensive fighters will be able to force whiffs from overextensions on defensive fighters.

[TheRizzzle]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

I love this idea but I wonder if most online players would love this. Would it encourage people to “run” and not engage in order to avoid losing by ko. Would this lead to cries that ranked fights aren’t fun.

Again, I think this is a great idea but in anticipating a lot of pushback from comp players if they ever did this.



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Yeah I have no idea.

My caveman interpretation of what onliners find fun is that they want to knock everyone out, but not get knocked out themselves because whatever works on them is spam, and whatever works for them is skill.

They want the game to be realistic, but not too realistic since, ya know, over half of all MMA fights end in a decision (close to 60%).

I suppose everyone runs IRL.



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[tomitomitomi]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

Here I am. I've been on vacation the last couple weeks and committed to my family that I would put work entirely out of my mind during that time as I have a tendency to get wrapped up in it otherwise.

There was some guy who unironically complained that one of devs was writing a book in his spare time because apparently he should've been working on the game instead. Hopefully you won't hear anything like that.

Maybe someday everyone will have fancy haptic body suits with resistive feedback so we can actually make you feel tired and KO you in one shot but I suspect that would be a litigious nightmare.

I haven't actually tried DualSense but isn't it a miniature version of what you're describing here? You could use haptic feedback to signal damage or use the adaptive triggers to make things like blocking and modifiers harder with low stamina.

Only way I could see incentivizing that online is to put a heavy premium on not getting finished. So yeah, losing would hurt but getting finished would lose more, otherwise fighters will go for it with no real reason not to.

From competitive and entertainment perspectives it's terrible. For example, Brendan Schaub had that god-awful grappling match some years ago where he stalled so he would not get finished the whole time.

Quick match is also filled with people who easily rage quit if you don't engage enough with them so I don't see this idea ever being popular.

over half of all MMA fights end in a decision (close to 60%).

MMA or specifically UFC? I am very confident that decisions are more common in high level MMA orgs (whether you wanna count orgs besides UFC is up to you) than in the local scenes.

[TheRizzzle]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

MMA or specifically UFC? I am very confident that decisions are more common in high level MMA orgs (whether you wanna count orgs besides UFC is up to you) than in the local scenes.

You're right. I'm going high level here and more specifically the high level of UFC fighters that make up this roster.

Basically it's really hard to beat most of the EA Sports UFC 4 roster, let alone finish them IRL. If you compared the way a match-up between most of the roster would probably get decided IRL versus in the game, it's entirely unrealistic, which is fine but underscores the fact that most that want TRUE SIM, probably don't.

I might dork out one day and list all the actual fights that have happened between game roster fighters in a division and do some analysis on how those fights turned out.

Would probably pick HW cause it would highlight the point the most, since IRL it has the highest finish rate.



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[bcelts]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

There have been a lot of posts with pretty well thought out answers to many of your questions and a lot of shade thrown about in this thread. I will try to answer as best I can.

Why are there still so many knock downs in matches?
We've been working on tuning this throughout the cycle and have dialed them back significantly however we will always have a larger number of knockdowns in our game than in reality, more on that later.

Why doesn’t the new or 2nd Gameplay Developer interact with people on this forum?
Here I am. I've been on vacation the last couple weeks and committed to my family that I would put work entirely out of my mind during that time as I have a tendency to get wrapped up in it otherwise. That being said today is my first day back and this forum was my first stop. I am always watching the forums however I only post when I have something concrete to say as I have found that otherwise my posts can lead to a lot of wild speculation. Your feedback is valuable to me and I file as much as I can of it away for future reference.

Why can't EA make a simulation mode?
This is an interesting question. We try to make the game as much fun as possible and that doesn't always mean simulation. I will touch on a couple common complaints about our game to try to explain. I'm sure some folks will disagree with my explanations and I look forward to reading their rebuttals.
Stamina: There have been a lot of complaints about the stamina in our game being too high and we have worked to address those. However while we can simulate stamina with a bar at the top of your screen you the player will never actually feel tired. This disconnect between you and the fighter on your screen means that people will often push their in game fighter further than an actual fighter would be able to in reality. I have been in actual fights in tournaments and felt my arms and legs turn to lead but we can't communicate that same sense to the player. Given that it makes sense to give the player a bit more leeway.
Knockdowns: The argument around knockdowns dovetails well into the points about stamina above. Because you have an abstract view of the fight we have a limited set of ways to communicate the gravity of your situation in game and knockdowns are one of them. As Irish0331 pointed out in his post most knockdowns in MMA are one and done. If we reflected this in our game we would remove knockdowns as a tool for communicating to you that you are in trouble. As I mentioned before I have had the opportunity to fight in the ring and have been at both the giving and receiving end of one and done strikes, while it was satisfying to KO my opponent and I'm sure it was satisfying for the opponent who KOed me I can assure you it was less satisfying to be completely in the fight one moment and completely out of it the next (granted the unexpected nap was nice). Knockouts and knockdowns are exciting, we would rather err on the side of too many exciting moments for both players than an unexpected and unsatisfying end for one player.

We are always trying to balance fun and simulation. We are far more sim than most fighting games on the market but we want to make sure the game remains accessible and fun for the largest group of people possible and playable on a regular controller with a regular TV. Maybe someday everyone will have fancy haptic body suits with resistive feedback so we can actually make you feel tired and KO you in one shot but I suspect that would be a litigious nightmare.

I hope this provides some insight. Please keep commenting, keep providing constructive feedback and keep challenging the things we do in our game and the things I say on this forum. The back and forth discussion is intellectually stimulating and I can assure you it has definitely had an impact on how we build our game.

You all have my gratitude.

Appreciate the response. I just do not understand why there could not be a mode that is geared more towards a simulation of the sport. I know that it might separate people playing ranked and might make it harder to match up with people. What if a lot of people enjoyed it? Why not take the chance and see how it goes? Why not try it? What could it hurt?

[aholbert32]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

Appreciate the response. I just do not understand why there could not be a mode that is geared more towards a simulation of the sport. I know that it might separate people playing ranked and might make it harder to match up with people. What if a lot of people enjoyed it? Why not take the chance and see how it goes? Why not try it? What could it hurt?

Bold is the biggest issue and the complaint I've heard for 5 yrs from online players.

I havent really been paying attention to UFC 4 but I regularly heard complaints from ranked people that they were fighting against the same people over and over again in UFC 2 and 3. They were adamantly against anything that might split the user base anymore and some of the devs appeared to have a sympathetic ear toward that complaint.

The fear is that the "sim" guys who play ranked would just play the sim ranked and that would split the base.

Not saying that I agree with it but its what I've heard.

[Abstrakt fists]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

Bold is the biggest issue and the complaint I've heard for 5 yrs from online players.

I havent really been paying attention to UFC 4 but I regularly heard complaints from ranked people that they were fighting against the same people over and over again in UFC 2 and 3. They were adamantly against anything that might split the user base anymore and some of the devs appeared to have a sympathetic ear toward that complaint.

The fear is that the "sim" guys who play ranked would just play the sim ranked and that would split the base.

Not saying that I agree with it but its what I've heard.

I think a sim/standard/arcade modes split across ranked would actually increase the longevity of the game. It would split the base but increase the amount of time people spent on the game. It would let everyone play to their strengths.

[tomitomitomi]

Re: EA better start working on a simulation mode!

Bold is the biggest issue and the complaint I've heard for 5 yrs from online players.

I havent really been paying attention to UFC 4 but I regularly heard complaints from ranked people that they were fighting against the same people over and over again in UFC 2 and 3. They were adamantly against anything that might split the user base anymore and some of the devs appeared to have a sympathetic ear toward that complaint.

The fear is that the "sim" guys who play ranked would just play the sim ranked and that would split the base.

Not saying that I agree with it but its what I've heard.

Do you know whether this complaint came from top tier players specifically or across the board? If the former then there's nothing you can do besides reverting to launch UFC 4's matchmaking where you can have Division 20 vs Division 7 games.

If the complaint came from top tier players you may as well ignore it because if you're top 100 then obviously there's only a few hundred people with comparable rating to yours.