EA UFC 3 (Update: RPM Tech Striking Deep Dive Blog)

[cabear]

having the fighters adhere to some kind of real assessment of their skills would add tons of replay. imagine a quick, accurate conor with suspect gas and no real take down defense? as conor you'd play smart and use movement, against him you'd try to exploit his gas and ground game. right now conor is god among men and good luck taking him anywhere.

 

[rocketskates]

Bring back the rival setting too. Remember how in the older Ufc games if you shit talked your opponent after the fight they would become your rival?

 

[Janderson Jilva]

Will they have enough time to add in the new Rebook kits ? The third set of kits that is

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

Because in terms of game design, mechanics and dynamics, it's the best MMA game to date.

EA were moronic to not look at what made UFC3 successful and try to replicate at least some of that success. Instead, they started completely from scratch with their own ideas, made something terrible, and don't really seem to be righting themselves.

Robotic grappling, arcade super move striking, static clinches and not even the ability to push a takedown into the cage in EA's UFC attempts.

Only thing they really have right is the visuals.

You really can't call anything robotic while praising the THQ UFC games. I loved those games too but remember the swaying? LOL now that is robotic.

The grappling wasn't any better in those games than it is in the EA games either. Really the only big advantage is the amount of single player content UFC 3 had. EA needs to add more of that. Title mode seems like something that should be VERY simple to include, and added a ton of replay value to UFC 3 for me. I liked replaying the legendary fights to unlock videos too.

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

Bring back the rival setting too. Remember how in the older Ufc games if you shit talked your opponent after the fight they would become your rival?

Ugh please no.

I'm not opposed to finding a way to have your career fighter have some personality, that could be a great addition, but the way THQ did it was hilariously bad.

 

[xhaydenx]

You really can't call anything robotic while praising the THQ UFC games. I loved those games too but remember the swaying? LOL now that is robotic.

The grappling wasn't any better in those games than it is in the EA games either. Really the only big advantage is the amount of single player content UFC 3 had. EA needs to add more of that. Title mode seems like something that should be VERY simple to include, and added a ton of replay value to UFC 3 for me. I liked replaying the legendary fights to unlock videos too.

The striking and a lot of the anims were robotic, but you gotta remember this game was last gen. EA did have EA MMA, but while UFC3 was robotic, that game was overly floaty and unrealistic in its own way.

Grappling in EA UFC 2 in particular is robotic. The mount in that is the worst. You get into mount lying down. Then you have to hold a direction to sit up, which takes time. Then you're just hovering over the other fighter and throwing these weird looking punches. It's the clunkiest shit I've ever seen and felt nothing like being in mount.
Compare that to UFC3 where you're trying to catch the strikes or desperately scramble out of there.

I never really gave a shit about UFC3 having more SP content like title mode. I just care about the gameplay. UFC3 has the excitement of a fight while EA UFC has too many of it's game-y elements showing through. They also care more about flair arcade gameplay. That's why you've got all these stupid kicks, combo multipliers and unrealistic damage systems.

I mean, in EA UFC 2 you can land like 3 head kicks in a row to no effect, but 5 or so pitter patter hammer fists on the ground or a couple of knees in the clinch will end it.

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

I mean, in EA UFC 2 you can land like 3 head kicks in a row to no effect, but 5 or so pitter patter hammer fists on the ground or a couple of knees in the clinch will end it.

This applies to UFC 3 too. No MMA game has felt like the fight could end at any time to be honest. A lot of that is because the hardcore gamers can't deal with a lucky haymaker giving them a loss to a scrub, which I understand lol but for it to feel like MMA, there needs to be an element of excitement that the fight could end at any time.

They need to make KO's from 1 or 2 well timed power strikes a legit threat, while also making it hard to do. The answer to that would be cardio playing a much bigger roll probably... you can throw fancy power techniques but if you don't finish, you're going to be exhausted late in the fight. Risk/reward.

I agree about hating the combo multiplier shit and I have my complaints about EA UFC 1 and 2, but I also think UFC 3 is not remembered realistically, particularly by a lot of people who gave up on trying to learn EA (not saying that applies to you). That game was very flawed itself. I probably put more hours into it then any game ever, I loved it, but it wasn't perfect and EA improved quite a few things IMO.

 

[xhaydenx]

This applies to UFC 3 too. No MMA game has felt like the fight could end at any time to be honest. A lot of that is because the hardcore gamers can't deal with a lucky haymaker giving them a loss to a scrub, which I understand lol but for it to feel like MMA, there needs to be an element of excitement that the fight could end at any time.

They need to make KO's from 1 or 2 well timed power strikes a legit threat, while also making it hard to do. The answer to that would be cardio playing a much bigger roll probably... you can throw fancy power techniques but if you don't finish, you're going to be exhausted late in the fight. Risk/reward.

I agree about hating the combo multiplier shit and I have my complaints about EA UFC 1 and 2, but I also think UFC 3 is not remembered realistically, particularly by a lot of people who gave up on trying to learn EA (not saying that applies to you). That game was very flawed itself. I probably put more hours into it then any game ever, I loved it, but it wasn't perfect and EA improved quite a few things IMO.

UFC3 did have that excitement that the fight could anytime though. If you played on PRO with stamina set to simulation mode it was near perfect. A few well placed shots and it was over.

The only thing that sucked about that was that you didn't really recover from damage. Once you're damage was too much then the next hit finished you. I liked in EA UFC how you could at least recover somewhat.

Also what you say about having cardio play a big factor in finishing is in UFC3 with sim mode turned on. You could easily blow your load early and just not have the stamina to finish in later rounds. It was awesome.

I'm a game designer, so I understand all too well what catering to different skill levels implies and how much of a headache it can be. The problem with EA UFC was that it catered to the less skilled too much. Even the casuals didn't like it. My brother got it for free the other day on Xbox. I watched him play a fight. He was Conor and fighting Nate. He was just laughing at how stupid it was that he could land all these crazy kicks one after another and no knockout.

I played the hell out of EA UFC 1 and 2, and I honestly think EA UFC 1 was better in ways. I liked the ground in that more. It was more responsive and less of a mini-game that it is in EA UFC 2. They didn't really fix anything else between 1 and 2. Same old striking, same old ridiculously unrealistic clinch mini-game.

 

[Yari]

Will they have enough time to add in the new Rebook kits ? The third set of kits that is

Yeah apparently they are already in. EA got the designs months ahead of the reveal, according to a GameChanger that has already seen them ingame.

--

I'm very hopefuly for EA UFC 3 after some things I have read but we're obviously going to have to wait and see. Hopefully they won't mess up the attributes again, making half of the roster useless.

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

UFC3 did have that excitement that the fight could anytime though. If you played on PRO with stamina set to simulation mode it was near perfect. A few well placed shots and it was over.

The only thing that sucked about that was that you didn't really recover from damage. Once you're damage was too much then the next hit finished you. I liked in EA UFC how you could at least recover somewhat.

Also what you say about having cardio play a big factor in finishing is in UFC3 with sim mode turned on. You could easily blow your load early and just not have the stamina to finish in later rounds. It was awesome.

I'm a game designer, so I understand all too well what catering to different skill levels implies and how much of a headache it can be. The problem with EA UFC was that it catered to the less skilled too much. Even the casuals didn't like it. My brother got it for free the other day on Xbox. I watched him play a fight. He was Conor and fighting Nate. He was just laughing at how stupid it was that he could land all these crazy kicks one after another and no knockout.

I played the hell out of EA UFC 1 and 2, and I honestly think EA UFC 1 was better in ways. I liked the ground in that more. It was more responsive and less of a mini-game that it is in EA UFC 2. They didn't really fix anything else between 1 and 2. Same old striking, same old ridiculously unrealistic clinch mini-game.

Disagree that ufc was perfect. Simulation mode was an improvement but adding a few flash knockouts and faster damage accumulation isn't quite enough Imo.. Definitely did that better than ea though and I thought having to manage your cardio carefully improved things a lot.

Also disagree that ea caters to the less skilled. It's very easy to beat spammers and id say the better player wins a large majority of the time precisely because it's so hard to get a quick KO without landing a big combo.. though fighter stats are important too. But as I said I do agree that they don't punish flashy moves nearly enough.

Thq also released with broken servers year after year, didn't deliver on their promises, didn't support after release... Both have their advantages. Thq is gone though so this is what we have for now, hopefully they make some improvements.

 

[xhaydenx]

Also disagree that ea caters to the less skilled. It's very easy to beat spammers and id say the better player wins a large majority of the time precisely because it's so hard to get a quick KO without landing a big combo.. though fighter stats are important too. But as I said I do agree that they don't punish flashy moves nearly enough.

Yeah, I got pretty good with both 1 and 2 online. At high levels, there were just too many idiots who did that body kick, jab, body kick spam that got you stunlocked. I think the devs did eventually address that. It it wasn't that sort of crap though, it was the stupid clinch game. That was some of the poorest design I've ever seen.

There were some good, high level fights against decent players who didn't just try to exploit the game's design flaws, and those were some damn good times, even if it was mostly just both of you dashing in and out, throwing jabs for 3 rounds.

I dunno, I'm sorta interested to see if they address these things in EA UFC 3, but I do feel like their design approach is all wrong whether they're catering to hardcore or casual markets. I don't like that they basically ignored what UFC3 did completely. Why try and answer all these questions when someone else already spent the time and effort answering them already? They should've used UFC3 as a base and iterated on it from there.

 

[Green Poncho]

Did the game changer mention if parries are still in?

If yes, I'll just play the free ten hour trial and get it for free later.

 

[sportkillergreg]

UFC3 did have that excitement that the fight could anytime though. If you played on PRO with stamina set to simulation mode it was near perfect. A few well placed shots and it was over.

The only thing that sucked about that was that you didn't really recover from damage. Once you're damage was too much then the next hit finished you. I liked in EA UFC how you could at least recover somewhat.

Also what you say about having cardio play a big factor in finishing is in UFC3 with sim mode turned on. You could easily blow your load early and just not have the stamina to finish in later rounds. It was awesome.

I'm a game designer, so I understand all too well what catering to different skill levels implies and how much of a headache it can be. The problem with EA UFC was that it catered to the less skilled too much. Even the casuals didn't like it. My brother got it for free the other day on Xbox. I watched him play a fight. He was Conor and fighting Nate. He was just laughing at how stupid it was that he could land all these crazy kicks one after another and no knockout.

I played the hell out of EA UFC 1 and 2, and I honestly think EA UFC 1 was better in ways. I liked the ground in that more. It was more responsive and less of a mini-game that it is in EA UFC 2. They didn't really fix anything else between 1 and 2. Same old striking, same old ridiculously unrealistic clinch mini-game.

I liked both the striking and the ground game in UFC 1 better than 2. As far as UFC 2 having the 'same old striking' I would argue that it's actually completely different. UFC 1 had much more fluid striking and you can actually walk people down. UFC 2 fights like rock em sock em robots, feels laggy and you can only engage if the other person chooses to engage. If you walk back in UFC 2 you can avoid literally everything. If you are rocked in UFC 2, you can just walk back and theres nothing the other person can do about it. UFC 1 you could throw more interesting combos as well. Stun animations in 2 are also overdone.

Honestly if they just kept UFC 1 mechanics and just expanded the roster and made a better career mode for UFC 2 I would have been happy. Instead they created a sluggish, sluggish game but I've seen most people saying that UFC 2 is better than 1. I really don't understand that - even the character models are worse in 2 for some reason. Conor McGregor looks way more like Conor in 1 than in 2, makes you wonder what they were doing when the developers created the game.

 

[TKing]

The developer seemed more invested in the first EA UFC ad they updated the heck out of very often and stopped about 2 or so months until the 2nd was out. There was way less updates to the 2nd and they focused more on adding stuff to their money making mode.

 

[xhaydenx]

I liked both the striking and the ground game in UFC 1 better than 2. As far as UFC 2 having the 'same old striking' I would argue that it's actually completely different. UFC 1 had much more fluid striking and you can actually walk people down. UFC 2 fights like rock em sock em robots, feels laggy and you can only engage if the other person chooses to engage. If you walk back in UFC 2 you can avoid literally everything. If you are rocked in UFC 2, you can just walk back and theres nothing the other person can do about it. UFC 1 you could throw more interesting combos as well. Stun animations in 2 are also overdone.

Honestly if they just kept UFC 1 mechanics and just expanded the roster and made a better career mode for UFC 2 I would have been happy. Instead they created a sluggish, sluggish game but I've seen most people saying that UFC 2 is better than 1. I really don't understand that - even the character models are worse in 2 for some reason. Conor McGregor looks way more like Conor in 1 than in 2, makes you wonder what they were doing when the developers created the game.

Yeah, I agree with most of this actually, although I don't really remember UFC 1's striking being more fluid or anything.

Totally agree with the sluggish part though. And the sluggishness has nothing to do with the way the game performs, it's the way they designed the systems. The grappling is awfully clunky and no where near as good as UFC 1 or even THQ's games. UFC3 never felt sluggish at all.

Having rocked fighters move back at the same speed as the other fighter is a complete joke.

And the fucking A.I. How the hell is it so much worse in EA UFC 2 than EA UFC 1? In EA UFC one they were unrealistically good with parries, but you could still have some good fights. In 2 you can literally march forward just spamming 1-2s for an easy knockout by the end of round 2. I make games, and I'd be embarrassed to ship a title with something like that.

The career mode is another joke. It's just fight after fight. There's nothing at all else to it. I think I only lost like 2 fights in mine. The first was when I was ranked like #7. For some reason my next fight was a title shot. I won that, lost it a few fights later. For the rest of my career, despite fighting the top #5 it never gave me another title shot. And the worst part of this "career mode"? I finish a fight and then it suddenly gives me a text box telling me I've taken too much damage in my career and that I should hit the practice mode.

That shit left me speechless. Whoever worked on that career mode should be ashamed of themselves. It's barely enough to even be considered a career mode.

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

The career mode is another joke. It's just fight after fight. There's nothing at all else to it. I think I only lost like 2 fights in mine. The first was when I was ranked like #7. For some reason my next fight was a title shot. I won that, lost it a few fights later. For the rest of my career, despite fighting the top #5 it never gave me another title shot. And the worst part of this "career mode"? I finish a fight and then it suddenly gives me a text box telling me I've taken too much damage in my career and that I should hit the practice mode.

That shit left me speechless. Whoever worked on that career mode should be ashamed of themselves. It's barely enough to even be considered a career mode.

Just kidding, career is garbage. So repetitive.

Also I created a boxer and knocked all my opponents out in spectacular fashion - never got a KO of the night award.
I created a grappler and submitted tons of opponents with flying submissions - never got a sub of the night award. What is that shit based on?

 

[TheAgent025]

hopefully this project is put on ice in favor of Fight Night. I'm not against MMA, but I believe demand should be built up just like there is right now for a good current gen boxing game.

Ya im ready for some fight night HW action

 

[TCE]

I heard there's going to be a PRIDE mode, is this true?

If so, I may purchase this one. I never played EA UFC 2, because I thought the first one was garbage.

THQ got it right with Undisputed 3, best UFC game to date.

 

[Bradleysan22]

EA has the potential to make their 3rd game amazing if they just focus on the right areas.

Focus on animations, so that everything looks realistic and unique to each fighter's style. Don't overflow the barrel with 75 extra fighters that all feel similar.

Focus on realistic risk vs reward. Fatigue should be something that everyone playing should fear. Want to throw bombs? Better land or get seriously gassed out. Want to trade shots? Be ready to get dropped quick if you don't defend.Getting put in bad positions in grappling? Your stamina should drain quicker under stress.Taking a low stamina fighter into deep waters with a better conditioned fighter should be a real strategy.

Focus on going completely away from HUD/Mini Games. You should be able to tell everything you need to know about a fight from the actions & appearance of the fighters, as well the commentary. That's it. No need to watch a stamina bar, a damage HUD, or a giant graphic when in a sub battle. There should be animations for being gassed, for being hurt to varying degrees. A small rocked state might be wobbly legs after a shot, a more damaging rocked state might be a complete drop to ground, etc.. and the commentary should react accoringly with "hes hurt!" or "I think he's hurt here" depending on the severity.

Marry the grappling mechanics wit the submissions. Transition based Subs has been brought up multiple times. This is the best way to handle it. For the noobs, the commentary can alert you of subs being attempted, heck even adding a subtle camera flash at the start to alert people that can't identify the threat of a kimura on their own.

A massive tutorial system. There should be a complete gym atmosphere and allow for online sparring with friends in this arena. Players will LEARN the nuances. Just provide a deep dive into everything from basic - advanced striking to identifying every submission in the game.

Takedowns need to be more intricate. Right now you either win outright or lose outright. And quite honestly, it's too easy to stuff even great wrestlers which leads to too many fights being kickboxing matchups. They need to overhaul the takedowns to allow chain wrestling/takedowns, and overhaul the clinch entirely to be more fluid in out of them.

If they do this, the game would be on a whole new level.

 

[TKing]

I agree with the previous post, especially where they should go away from the mini games and randomness and just let the player proceed with what they see. I have no clue how it can be done but it would make for a great natural fight and also multiplayer matchups would be more interesting.

I also wouldn't be mad if they stole ideas from the NBA 2k games for career mode and gm style modes, EA is just so bad with that type of stuff that it's embarrassing for a big company to be so shitty at such an important aspect of games.