Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

[RaychelSnr]

Noah Weber checks in today with a look at what he is looking forward to with Fight Night Round 4.

"EA’s Fight Night Round 3 was one of the best sports games in recent memory. The controls were innovative, the gameplay was fun, and the graphics are still among the best we’ve seen on the next-gen consoles. Nevertheless, the game still had some drawbacks. The lack of relevant licensed boxers was slightly discouraging, with certain obvious omissions like Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Mike Tyson being most notable. Furthermore, while the Total Punch Control system was extremely well executed, there was little advantage to using it over the buttons, which allowed for faster and more responsive punching. Also, the heavy emphasis on cartoonish haymaker punches was for many a step in the wrong direction as far as gameplay was concerned."

[ManiacMatt1782]

the ear bite was an illegal punch back in KO Kings 2001.

Anyway this is gonna be a wait and see for me, i have been burned too many times by this particular company to warrant a 1st day purchase.

[Complex]

Sounds promising but I will wait and see

[metallicatz]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

As long as EA tightens up the gameplay, produces a real career mode with actual rankings and belts you can carry into the ring, and ditches the canned knockdown animations in favor of the older style of FNR2..........I'll be a happy camper.

Personally, having licensed boxers in a game isn't much of an appeal to me. I'd much rather have a career mode where you can create a ton of boxers instead of going through historic licensed fighters. I have to admit though that I'm looking forward to playing with Tyson.

[fistofrage]

Please focus on the career mode. Lots of different attributes, and lots of different training options. We also need a relistic amount of fights going the disctance. Please allow for 2 minute rounds or accelerated clock in career mode.

Make the career mode robust with a huge list of rankings and being able to pick and choose your fights. Multiple belts and unification would be nice. No story mode, make all the choices.

One other thing I would like to see is in career mode, you create a boxer but you can't necessarily max out their stats. Some boxers will come up with alot of power, but some boxers just aren't made to be KO artists. It would be nice if created boxers has a certain potential factor and they may never be able to reach elite status, but it would still be cool to kick around with a journeyman who may or may not ever get a shot at the title.

Also, Please let us have multiple boxers going in the same career. Nothing would be funner than watching you and a friend rising up the rankings either ducking eachother or possibly fighting along the way.

[Money99]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

I stopped reading his article after this:

"EA’s Fight Night Round 3 was one of the best sports games in recent memory.

Round 3 was barely a boxing game, let alone a sports game.
How on earth do you praise a boxing game that doesn't even have RANKINGS????

My wish for round 4 is that the career mode is solid. And there better be open ended training too. I'm so done with the stupid and tired 'mini-game' training.

Just like VB2, you should have X amount of hours in each day to prepare for a fight. You fill that schedule with things like weight-lifting, running, skip rope, sparring, etc.
Sparring is the biggest thing.
And I want total control over my diet.

I could go on and on, but to be honest, I'm not holding my breath. I tired of asking for the same things over and over again. It's been decades.

When the career modes in boxing games of this generation and last, still can't hold a candle to that of a 16-bit title, nobody should get their hopes up.

The only chance any of us have at this is if one of the members here wins the Powerball lottery and pays to have a game made.

[fistofrage]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

When the career modes in boxing games of this generation and last, still can't hold a candle to that of a 16-bit title, nobody should get their hopes up.

The only chance any of us have at this is if one of the members here wins the Powerball lottery and pays to have a game made.

Even then your hiring pool would probably be limited to out of work 2k workers in flip flops.

I know, we beg and plead and we will never be able to have a say in it. Just please, please, please make a robust career mode. Another thing that would be great is a name database. Having the announcer only announce nicknames is terrible. All of the other games have the annoucers saying their names.

Also have the rankings in the career mode be active with other boxers moving up and down and fighting eachother. It would be great if the rankings had a minimum 100 boxers per weight class.

[metallicatz]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

"One other thing I would like to see is in career mode, you create a boxer but you can't necessarily max out their stats. Some boxers will come up with alot of power, but some boxers just aren't made to be KO artists. It would be nice if created boxers has a certain potential factor and they may never be able to reach elite status, but it would still be cool to kick around with a journeyman who may or may not ever get a shot at the title."

That's a great idea.

[Vast]

What you guys speak of has been my dream since Evander Real Deal Boxing. And now that the gameplay has the possibility of being great, the hopes of having an AWESOME career mode is almost a fantasy. I pray EA answers our call. If they do what we want and make a robust career mode, it will only increase their sales and fatten their pockets. Its mind boggling why they don't do this.

[EXboxur]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

To add depth to the game boxers need to be represented from different periods in their career. I want to be able to select beginning, middle, or end of career for boxers.

[BrianFifaFan]

I'm feeling this game will have the goods. EA Canada has put out some real winners lately. They seem to be a "sim" binge.

[Complex]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

I could careless about ring walks, or wearing the belt to the ring.

Boxer's Road 2 had a simple formula. The announcer said the name of the fighter, and showed him in his corner either:

1. Standing looking focused, no smile no grin
2. Bouncing up and down trying to stay warm
3. Shuffling his feet and jabbing about

Add this and simply have the trainer and cut man holding the belts in the background.

When they show these screens they also show the Tale of the Tap under his name (height, weight, record, notable fights). I think that is better than having my fighter crip walk to the ring.

[metallicatz]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

I would be satisfied with a scene showing the trainers in the corner holding the belt(s). After all, you spend all that time going through fights to get the title(s)......you wanna see those belts once you've gotten there. I could sacrifice the ring entrances as I usually skip them anyway.

[fistofrage]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

I definitely want the tale of the tape. Honestly, If EA takes the the career mode from Boxers Road, Adds solid in ring boxing, and puts in some extra presentation we'll all be very happy.

[allBthere]

Re: Fight Night Round 4 Hopes and Concerns

make jabbing a practical neccessity.

tale of the tape

harold letterman's score cards

choose who you fight (at least 10+ options during points of your carreer, but have some mandatory defenses).

Varied opponents (some pad stats by fighting bums and are therefore deceptively weak, make semi-scouting, record analysis available)

Create virtually as many boxers as you want that can be human or AI from that point on.

multiple gym's, trainers etc.

DNA starting point reflecting (to an extent) handspeed, power, heart, cuts)

make rounds, hit%, punches per round etc. statistically believeable in default settings (maybe accelerated clock?)
same w/ ko likelyhood ***for me, even more important than my fighter NOT winning every single bout by ko, is that, if I'm going to lose, I don't want to lose INEVITABLY by KO --- can't some AI outbox my slugger????

Don't make me age too quickly - why is my career over after 32-34 wins? and I start to diminish???

Why in god's name does my fighter's stats take a big dip after a loss? - this is often not the case...sometimes this happens when fighting a horrible opponent for a 'tune-up'. There are also natural 'ups and downs' how people feel during some nights + momentum, second wind etc..

Also if we had to quantify real life athlete's abilities, would they not be close to what they are for big portion of their careers like other sports?
did rocky's first 10 fights have a ''power score'' of less than 50, and it kept growing until he was a 'top ten' boxer where it finally reaches the 80s and 90s in score? also see tyson.
Was sugar ray and pbf's handspeed crap until they had 20+ wins??? did jake lamotta's chin continuously get better and better? was arturo's heart rating improving and so on and so on.

training imporves your conditioning andkeeps you in shape as well as imporving technique and boxing skill..there's a huge mental game too.

in the end i probably shouldn't have bothered thinking/writing about this stuff because it's useless we're in charge.