News Post

EA Sports UFC 2 Impressions: Gamechangers Event 2

10:51 AM - December 15, 2015 by aholbert32

OK, so I'm back after almost a week of nothing but UFC events (UFC 2, TUF Finale, UFC 194). Here are a few quick impressions. Some of them are vague because I cant speak specifically about a few things that haven't been discussed (cant go into great depth about the striking yet):

- Roster: The roster is about final and it's the largest MMA game roster ever. There are some BIG surprises that I cant talk about yet but I think everyone will be excited about them.

- Grappling System - I've played every MMA game ever created (back to the Dreamcast days) and this is the most natural system I've seen. Past systems have always felt turn based. For example, I'm in half guard, I try to move to Side Control but you block it...now its your turn and you try to move me back into full guard.

This system feels like grappling. There are more positions, more sweeps and more escapes. Now before you flip out these moves aren't available to everyone. For example, I primarily used Welterweights when I was playing the game because that division was the only one with some of the AI fully installed and the complete move-sets implemented.

In one of my first fights I used a non- top 10 WW who is primarily a striker vs an unranked WW who is primarily a grappler. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the grappler was successful in taking me down by using trips in the clinch. Both times, he proceeded to keep top control for over 2 minutes. I didn't feel cheated at all because my opponent had a much better move-set and ratings on the ground than I did. This sort of thing would've happened in a real fight.

In round 3, I started sick of being held down and managed to get my opponent back into half guard. I started spamming trying to get out from under him and that worked to my detriment. He passed to full mount and submitted me with an arm-bar. That seemed perfect to me. I spammed, it cost me a ton of stamina and my opponent was able to move into a dominant position and finish me.

This never happened in UFC 1.

Bottom line: I love the new system and the devs are still working with the GC's on ways to continue to improve it. There were some small issues that I brought to the Dev's attention (AI fighters were aggressive with position advances on top but not mixing enough strikes; CPU would sometimes randomly stand up from half guard) but even with those issues the system looked great.

AI and Movesets: I have to be a bit vague here because its not fully installed but I like what I see so far. My biggest frustration with UFC 1's striking AI was everyone was a kick-boxer. EVERYONE. Guys who rarely throw kicks would throw kicks constantly.

There were only 10-15 guys who had their full AI and movesets installed but you could see a difference. I played against one boxing HW who rarely throws kicks in real life and in the game...he rarely threw any kicks. Hopefully, Skynet will talk a little about the work he's done on the AI because it deserves some attention and praise.

With that said, I've only seen a small bit of it and I'll really be able to dig into it closer to release. If its stays consistent with what I saw Wednesday, the AI will be in good shape.

Regarding move-sets, the dev team has taken a more intelligent approach. The move-sets for the most part are still works in progress but I was satisfied with the completed ones I saw. There will likely still be discussions about whether fighter X should have a spinning back fist or not. But I don't think there will be any similar to UFC 1 where HWs had Capoeira kicks and Showtime kicks.

I'll answer some of the questions from last week's thread a little later.

Member Comments

# 41 Pappy Knuckles @ 12/18/15 12:43 PM

Are we able to use the cage to get up when we're on the ground?

# 42 aholbert32 @ 12/18/15 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pappy Knuckles


	Are we able to use the cage to get up when we're on the ground?

Yes. Cage walks are in the game.

# 43 hirst1000 @ 12/18/15 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aholbert32


	Yes. Cage walks are in the game.

I know this wasn't shown in any of the stop motion videos like cage walks, but are takedowns off the cage in the game too?

Also, do you find that fighters get back control more often?

# 44 overlordss @ 12/22/15 12:15 PM

1 question here, is there by any chance Doctor Stoppage? You know, if the guy gets too much damaged, deep cuts and the doctor is called and says he can't continue, i hope there is.

# 45 aholbert32 @ 12/22/15 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by overlordss


	1 question here, is there by any chance Doctor Stoppage? You know, if the guy gets too much damaged, deep cuts and the doctor is called and says he can't continue, i hope there is.

No doctor stoppages.

# 46 godylla @ 12/22/15 01:09 PM

Can you speak to alternate control options? Or remapping controls?

# 47 aholbert32 @ 12/22/15 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by godylla


	Can you speak to alternate control options? Or remapping controls?

Can't speak on that.

# 48 Pappy Knuckles @ 12/22/15 03:56 PM

Anyway to check a person's connection strength before a match?

# 49 ERA @ 12/22/15 08:17 PM

Are the rankings in the game?

# 50 pdandy @ 12/23/15 04:56 PM

Can you pull guard? If so and once the AI succeeds at this, do they try to stand up?
This was the biggest pet peeve in UFC Undisputed 2. A BJJ master will pull guard from the clinch and immediately try to kick you off...

# 51 davidbix @ 12/23/15 05:23 PM

I stayed away from here way too long and now I'm catching up...

QUESTIONS~!

* Do straights now have stopping power? Or is there at least now a "power straight" to go along with the straights from the first game? That they were treated like jabs power-wise was a huge flaw in the first game's striking.

* Are there move ratings for each fighter like Undisputed 3 had? For example, does Ryan LaFlare have a better body kick than the average fighter?

* I guess tying into the last question, are there more abilities than before? Attacking the base, razor wired, etc.

* Are parries overhauled in any way besides just tightening the system up, like left and right parries?

* How much kick catching were you seeing against the AI? Did it still happen too often with high kicks? (Keeping in mind the AI isn't complete)

* Were you surprised when you heard the game will be out at the beginning of Spring? That shocked me after last time, where "Spring" meant "last Tuesday of Spring."

* Would you say that overall, EA has added in the type of things where Undisputed 3 was better (positional variety, move variety, cage walking, etc) while also making their own improvements like the new grappling system?

Thanks!

# 52 aholbert32 @ 12/23/15 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidbix


	I stayed away from here way too long and now I'm catching up... QUESTIONS~! * Do straights now have stopping power? Or is there at least now a "power straight" to go along with the straights from the first game? That they were treated like jabs power-wise was a huge flaw in the first game's striking. Cant answer striking questions yet but this was one of the most discussed things with the Gamechangers and the Devs * Are there move ratings for each fighter like Undisputed 3 had? For example, does Ryan LaFlare have a better body kick than the average fighter? I cant speak to LaFlare's ratings but moves do have levels this year. * I guess tying into the last question, are there more abilities than before? Attacking the base, razor wired, etc. More and different abilities in UFC 2 * Are parries overhauled in any way besides just tightening the system up, like left and right parries? Cant discuss striking yet. * How much kick catching were you seeing against the AI? Did it still happen too often with high kicks? (Keeping in mind the AI isn't complete) Cant discuss striking but I didnt think that was an issue in UFC 1. Only occurred when the person throwing the strike was gassed * Were you surprised when you heard the game will be out at the beginning of Spring? That shocked me after last time, where "Spring" meant "last Tuesday of Spring." I know the current tentative date (its not the date that BJ Penn announced unless they changed it) and I was shocked. When I went to see the game the first time I was expecting a Summer release. * Would you say that overall, EA has added in the type of things where Undisputed 3 was better (positional variety, move variety, cage walking, etc) while also making their own improvements like the new grappling system? I say its a mix. I prefer the grappling in UFC 2 but I think UFC 3 had a few more options like butterfly guard. Thanks!

Answers in red.

# 53 davidbix @ 12/23/15 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aholbert32


	Answers in red.

Whoops missed the "can't talk about striking" stuff earlier.

Thanks! And we'd better get to play when get our review copies this time.

# 54 fballturkey @ 12/30/15 12:06 PM

One other thing I thought of: For primarily ground/submission fighters did you notice if they spam takedowns? It was a problem at launch for 1 but they toned it down quite a bit with a patch.

# 55 aholbert32 @ 12/30/15 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fballturkey


	One other thing I thought of: For primarily ground/submission fighters did you notice if they spam takedowns? It was a problem at launch for 1 but they toned it down quite a bit with a patch.

I did not see that. With that said, I dont have enough information yet. Keep in mind, I only had about 1 day to play the newest build and only the WW (and only select ones) had the AI and Movesets fully installed. The only one who was a grappler was GSP and as we all know he is a well rounded fighter. He shot for takedowns but also kept it standing for large portions of the fight.

What I want to see is a guy like Maia with his AI installed. If he isnt spamming takedowns and is intelligently attempting takedowns, I'll be happy.

# 56 Review @ 12/31/15 10:46 AM

Not sure if this has been aholbert, but are we allowed to edit the attributes/abilities of current UFC fighters?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

# 57 aholbert32 @ 12/31/15 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Review


	Not sure if this has been aholbert, but are we allowed to edit the attributes/abilities of current UFC fighters? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Nothing is finalized yet but I doubt it given the control the UFC likes to have over the roster.

# 58 jeremym480 @ 12/31/15 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aholbert32


	Nothing is finalized yet but I doubt it given the control the UFC likes to have over the roster.

I don't get why the would care what ratings were changed to for offline use.

# 59 OpenSource @ 12/31/15 02:59 PM

Hello,

I'm new here, but I've been a longtime MMA fan way back watching Royce Gracie in the mid 90's and used to play a ton of 3D "fighting" franchises, from playing a ton of the AKI and Spike wrestling games, to the Crave UFC game on Dreamcast, as well as THQ's UFC franchise on 360.

I just want to comment on my opinion of the way the franchise is going with EA. As far as an intellectual property, I'm sure it's great fan pandering. There's a lot of presentation bells and whistles, huge roster, and I've even seen the super casual Bruce Lee stuff from the last game.

I just am terribly disappointed this genre cannot move beyond the shallow thinking of making games solely based off of this. A couple of the ways I think the resources aren't well used from my experience are:

- Lots of focus on a huge roster, and accurate presentation. It's nice stuff, but I don't think it should be a focus. A Bruce Buffer intro the first 2 or 3 times is neat, but after that no one wants to watch it, or fight intros. They just want to play. A large roster is nice, but I think a deeper gameplay experience is a smaller roster with major nuances and strategy between them rather than 300 guys that you say 'oh this guys a wrestler, this guys muay thai, etc.' Spend some actual time and effort to break down heavy statistics to learn exactly how EACH fighter approaches EACH position and go from there. Does Anderson Silva go for the clinch 58% of the time when he's against the cage? What about how often from his back does he go for each submission? What does his striking rate drop to once it's the fourth round? These things take work, but make for a much more nuanced game instead of adding the 35th best lightweight, scanning his face, and giving him a generic wrestler moveset.

- Lots of focus on motion capturing, which always seems to be a problem in general, with WWE and UFC games. Yeah it's probably neat to sit around and watch the cool tech do it's work making wireframes from ham and egg local fighters getting paid a few hundred to pull off some generic Ju Jitsu moves in black suits with lights on them. But I'm guessing it wasn't so neat or funny when the developers saw the UFC "glitch" videos with a ton of views on Youtube with fighters spazzing in the air or taking down invisible ghosts. It happens every time, with every game with tech like this. Yet games like No Mercy and Fire Pro Wrestling with good animators who accurately depict the motions look ten times better and and have much less glitchyness. Maybe eventually producers will learn this is the way to go, and it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper, even if you won't be able to look is cool in a making of video blog.

My suggestions to make a deeper experience are:

- Developers: You have the most technical sport, art, or anything in my opinion at your disposal. And the only thing that they can think of with regards to a player sitting in front of their TV playing the game is to just throw out a bunch of random matches with some button mashing "training" thrown in? How about let the players learn the ACTUAL reasoning why these moves works through ACTUAL instructionals? The Gracies post breakdowns of fights or events and why submissions work in each position. Instead of 'twirl your gamepad while hitting X' give actual knowledge on what is used to move up the ranks of the BJJ belt system. How did Helio Gracie get submitted by Masahiko Kimura 60+ years ago? You could be showing this type of stuff to the player in either virtual instructionals or actual videos to KNOW how and why they work.

- History of how the sport got to where it is now and it's evolution over time. When the UFC first started, it wasn't fighter vs. fighter as much as martial art vs. martial art. Each fighter only knew their style and used that styles against the other fighter's style. Why not implement this in a single player mode? Let a fighter start off as a Brazilian Ju Jitsu artist or a wrestler and play to that style to win a tournament against other styles, similar to the way Royce Gracie and Dan Severn did?

- Finally, as a combination of the previous two, implement these into the way the game actually PLAYS. Think in terms of how the sport actually works and require the player to know the correct way to defend. If I'm on my back, I may be able to grab a leg and try to roll out of it, but he may get my back. If it's round one I can attack with a leg lock and since there's less sweat the grip is better than it would be in Round 3, so a better chance at submission. I'm in a crap situation where the guy is trying a front choke, do I move left or right to relieve the pressure or will it get me deeper in the choke?

I think much, much more time should be spent on developing the intricacies of the sport rather than bells and whistles, and all of my impressions reading about it so far seem to take very little in account. It seems to be bigger roster, bigger move set, bigger standard career mode.

Those are my thoughts, I hope that in the future the director of the studio tries to think more in terms of making the game an accurate representation of the arts and sport that go into it with knowledge, a history book, and practitioners rather than finding ways to implement the newest cool EA tech for a made-for-TV Eminence Front experience.

# 60 aholbert32 @ 12/31/15 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OpenSource


	Hello, I'm new here, but I've been a longtime MMA fan way back watching Royce Gracie in the mid 90's and used to play a ton of 3D "fighting" franchises, from playing a ton of the AKI and Spike wrestling games, to the Crave UFC game on Dreamcast, as well as THQ's UFC franchise on 360. I just want to comment on my opinion of the way the franchise is going with EA. As far as an intellectual property, I'm sure it's great fan pandering. There's a lot of presentation bells and whistles, huge roster, and I've even seen the super casual Bruce Lee stuff from the last game. I just am terribly disappointed this genre cannot move beyond the shallow thinking of making games solely based off of this. A couple of the ways I think the resources aren't well used from my experience are: - Lots of focus on a huge roster, and accurate presentation. It's nice stuff, but I don't think it should be a focus. A Bruce Buffer intro the first 2 or 3 times is neat, but after that no one wants to watch it, or fight intros. They just want to play. A large roster is nice, but I think a deeper gameplay experience is a smaller roster with major nuances and strategy between them rather than 300 guys that you say 'oh this guys a wrestler, this guys muay thai, etc.' Spend some actual time and effort to break down heavy statistics to learn exactly how EACH fighter approaches EACH position and go from there. Does Anderson Silva go for the clinch 58% of the time when he's against the cage? What about how often from his back does he go for each submission? What does his striking rate drop to once it's the fourth round? These things take work, but make for a much more nuanced game instead of adding the 35th best lightweight, scanning his face, and giving him a generic wrestler moveset. - Lots of focus on motion capturing, which always seems to be a problem in general, with WWE and UFC games. Yeah it's probably neat to sit around and watch the cool tech do it's work making wireframes from ham and egg local fighters getting paid a few hundred to pull off some generic Ju Jitsu moves in black suits with lights on them. But I'm guessing it wasn't so neat or funny when the developers saw the UFC "glitch" videos with a ton of views on Youtube with fighters spazzing in the air or taking down invisible ghosts. It happens every time, with every game with tech like this. Yet games like No Mercy and Fire Pro Wrestling with good animators who accurately depict the motions look ten times better and and have much less glitchyness. Maybe eventually producers will learn this is the way to go, and it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper, even if you won't be able to look is cool in a making of video blog. My suggestions to make a deeper experience are: - Developers: You have the most technical sport, art, or anything in my opinion at your disposal. And the only thing that they can think of with regards to a player sitting in front of their TV playing the game is to just throw out a bunch of random matches with some button mashing "training" thrown in? How about let the players learn the ACTUAL reasoning why these moves works through ACTUAL instructionals? The Gracies post breakdowns of fights or events and why submissions work in each position. Instead of 'twirl your gamepad while hitting X' give actual knowledge on what is used to move up the ranks of the BJJ belt system. How did Helio Gracie get submitted by Masahiko Kimura 60+ years ago? You could be showing this type of stuff to the player in either virtual instructionals or actual videos to KNOW how and why they work. - History of how the sport got to where it is now and it's evolution over time. When the UFC first started, it wasn't fighter vs. fighter as much as martial art vs. martial art. Each fighter only knew their style and used that styles against the other fighter's style. Why not implement this in a single player mode? Let a fighter start off as a Brazilian Ju Jitsu artist or a wrestler and play to that style to win a tournament against other styles, similar to the way Royce Gracie and Dan Severn did? - Finally, as a combination of the previous two, implement these into the way the game actually PLAYS. Think in terms of how the sport actually works and require the player to know the correct way to defend. If I'm on my back, I may be able to grab a leg and try to roll out of it, but he may get my back. If it's round one I can attack with a leg lock and since there's less sweat the grip is better than it would be in Round 3, so a better chance at submission. I'm in a crap situation where the guy is trying a front choke, do I move left or right to relieve the pressure or will it get me deeper in the choke? I think much, much more time should be spent on developing the intricacies of the sport rather than bells and whistles, and all of my impressions reading about it so far seem to take very little in account. It seems to be bigger roster, bigger move set, bigger standard career mode. Those are my thoughts, I hope that in the future the director of the studio tries to think more in terms of making the game an accurate representation of the arts and sport that go into it with knowledge, a history book, and practitioners rather than finding ways to implement the newest cool EA tech for a made-for-TV Eminence Front experience.

Thanks for the post and welcome to OS.

There is a big issue with your opinion on the game:

EA and the UFC goal is to sell the game to the largest audience available and the things that you suggest dont do that.

In fact some of the things that you are suggesting would potentially decrease the number of sales.

I'll go point by point:

Presentation: Ive spent a good amount of time on OS, Reddit and the EA forums reading and discussing the game and you are the first person I've seen suggest that EA should ignore presentation improvements. The backlash if EA decided to keep the original presentation in UFC1 wouldve been huge. People were consistently complaining about Buffer's announcements in UFC 1 and wouldve complained if the new presentation elements werent in the game.

Also it fails to take into account what people actually do on a dev team. The people who make the 250 fighters and create the presentation elements arent the people who are involved with gameplay. They have nothing to do with each other at all. Adding fighters doesnt mean that EA is taking time from ways to develop gameplay.

Motion Capture: There are people better suited to discuss then me but I've played No Mercy and Fire Pro and you cant even make a comparison. There were undeniably a lot of glitches in the game when it was released but that significantly decreased once the game was patched. Its to the point where I never see them and I play UFC 1 at least once a week.

With that said, I do agree that EA should rely less on Mo Cap if they can. My understanding is that they dont have an unlimited amount of time to record Mo Cap and once that time is used it makes it difficult to add new animations after the fact.

Developers: I think you have higher opinion of most gamers than I do. I dont see gamers spending time to watch Gracie breakdowns or BJJ history videos to understand the controls. ****, most people want to skip the tutorial that comes on when you first start the game. As many people as you and me who have an interest in why the moves work the way the do....most dont care. Creating those videos or licensing Gracie breakdowns would be a waste of resources in my opinion.

My last point is the bells and whistles sell the game. They do. The fact that there are 250 fighters sells the game. The new presentation helps sell the game. The new modes like KO mode and the career mode additions will help sell the game.

And thats what I care about. Eliminating or focusing less on the bells and whistles is a risky and unnecessary move. If people look at the commercial, videos or back of the box and see the same number of fighters, same modes (other than a UFC History mode), same presentation and same movesets....they may not buy the game.

If they dont buy the game, there is no UFC 3 and probably not another UFC game for years if ever. There are gameplay improvements. There are AI improvements and I think many will be satisfied with them. Is it to the level you want yet? Nope but its improved and at this point I'm ok with that.

« Previous 1 234 5 6 7 8 9 Next »

More Links

EA Sports UFC 2 Impressions: Gamechangers Event 2