My Idea of the Next Fight Night Game - Jackmouv's Blog

Jackmouv's Blog

My Idea of the Next Fight Night Game

Posted on March 24, 2009 at 05:39 PM.

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First off, notice the Name Change? EA Sports Championship Boxing
I agree that a career mode change is in order and long overdue for this franchise, though I would like to see EA take it in a radically different direction. So without further ado, here is my suggestion:
Have a hybrid offline-online career mode.
It would start out with you stepping in to the gym as an Amateur of average proportions, in an offline mode. You would be able to create a fighter (face, race, name, and all the general stuff) but no attributes.
First decision you have to make is what basic type of fighter you want to be, �Speed� or �Power�? After making this decision, you get a standard set of attributes based on what you selected. This is your starting point and mind you, from here, if you were to go into a fight with this body and skill set, there is no way you could beat anyone� or their 3 year old sister. So, the road ahead holds training and lots of it.
Offline training begins with your trainer requesting a sparring session. This session is with a tough but not overly challenging opponent; though with your skill set, he is impossible to knock out, so don�t even try. The good news is he is not trying to knock you out either. He is a test to assess your fighting style and the good, bad and ugly in your talent. Your training regiment will be built around shoring up some of your weaknesses and is the beginning of your �offline� armature career.
But not so fast, we determined your basic type, and based on the sparring session, your basic style.
There is just one thing left to determine, your heart.
Next and final test begins with these words from your trainer in a Mickey-esque voice, �We gotta see what kind of ticker you got, kid.� And just like that you are suddenly in a ring, legs wobbly, vision blurred and what looks like King Kong trying to knock you clean to Yonkers. The task is simple, stay alive and on your feet. Move, bob, weave, run, hold, hug or whatever you have to do to NOT get knocked out. How you handle your self will determine your heart, and some other intangible attributes.
Do you just run for dear life? Well, a couple of RANDOM opportunities to land some shots will present themselves in a high risk, high reward situation. Take �em and get caught, and your boxing intelligence takes a hit too. Take it and land and your heart gets a boost. Now this one test will not determine if your heart is 0 or 99 and it�s not the last chance to go off to see the wizard on the issue. It more or less determines the rate at which you gain and lose points against your heart attribute.
So that�s it, you are now an Amateur Prize Fighter and your trainer has all the data he needs to turn you into a champion. Let the training begin.
First is Boxing 101, this mandatory training session walks you through ALL the controls of the game, punching, moving, bob and duck, clinching and even general strategies such as cutting of the ring, combo punching and fight pacing. You will start to learn that you need to try to win each round in a fight and not try to win the fight in each round. Very Minor attribute gains occur during Boxing 101.
After this session, you meet your potential manager; At this point you can opt to hire this manager and have your amateur bouts selected by your manager (Auto Select) or you can choose not to hire him and choose your own fights from SEVERAL different fighters (Manual Select). Some keys here, if you choose not to higher the manager and instead to select your own fights, you will initially have very limited info on most of the fighters, but as you progress through your amateur career, there will be more and more data on the fighters. Let�s just hope you don�t lose too many fights by making bad choices. There are definitely pluses and minuses for going with a manager and like some of the other decisions that you have made to this point, this is an important one. But fear not, if the road gets tough for you, your agent will pop in from time to time and ask you if you missed him and once again offer his services� for a nice little raise in price. But it�s all good, he�ll start you a tab and you don�t have to pay it till you go pro.
Speaking of going pro, let�s move on.
So, you start your amateur fights, what�s next? Well, if you start to do well, there will begin to be buzz about your Olympic potential, it will have the feeling of a Heisman race in College Football. As you fight your way up the ladder towards the Amateur championship, the buzz gets louder and finally you get the call� you will represent the country that you selected for your boxer, when you set him up, at the next Olympics. Provided you win your next two fights, the Amateur Championship and Olympic Qualification Fight. Granted, you can go through the full Amateur Career and win all of your fights and still not get the invite or you could lose a couple and still be Olympic bound, it has a lot to do with your performance and a lot to do with the decisions you made coming up.
Turning Pro: Win or lose your first shot at the Amateur Title and you can still opt to go pro. If you are invited to the Olympics you can go pro after or decline the invite, however, if you do well at the Olympics you can add a trophy to your case (maybe) and some money (an endorsement bonus) to buy new gear for your pro debut. Since you can�t earn money as an amateur, without an invite and good showing at the Olympics you go pro broke and in the same shorts you�ve been wearing.
Opting to go pro, once you have had a title shot in �Offline Amateur� mode, unlocks �Online Career� mode where you face your stiffest opponents, other users. Mind you, there would be an Online Quick Play mode where you can just go online at anytime and fight anyone, including challenging friends, but no Online Career bouts and the Online Quick Play is not ranked. When you first go pro, all your health and stamina is refreshed, but fights take a lot out of you, the harder the fight the more drained you are. If you take a beating, cuts have to heal, injuries have to subside, and you need to train your attributes back up. This was also the case in the Amateurs but with head gear and protectors the effects were less. So, after a tough online fight, win or lose, you head back to training to rebuild yourself, you can train as much or as little as you like but if you step back in the ring before you are ready, you do so at your own risk.
In Online Career mode you are ranked based on your fighting success and can only fight boxers within a certain rank of your own and you move up and down the rankings until you are nothing or the champ. But, your boxer ages slightly based on the date and time you went pro. Something to the tune of 1 year per month and he ages a full year for each week that you don�t fight at all (this will keep people boxing). As your fighter ages, the maximum affects of training start to gradually decrease at first (up to say, age 30) just requiring more training and then it�s permanent.
So, something like this: Up to 30 you can train back to 100%, and then it drops 3% or 4% per year of age until 40. After 40 you are forced to retire if you lose 3 fights in a row. Upon being forced to retire and if you have had a stellar career, you have the option of being inducted into the Hall Of Fame and if you choose to, you would retire that name and have to create a new name if you want to start all over again, from Offline Amateur Mode. If not inducted into the HOF or if you choose not to go, you can restart with your same name but the Online Career mode will be locked again. Since you start your Pro career at age 20, and if you played every week, you could play for almost 2 years before being forced to retire.
Key Features:

Once in online Career mode, you can train offline to rebuild your online boxer after fights.
�Game Cash� is awarded for Online Career mode fights, 75% to the winner, and 25% to the loser. This �game cash� can be used to buy new shorts, gloves and other equipment including an entourage.
You can buy better trainers and better cut men for the tough fights and buy better equipment for your gym.
Up to 20 spectators can log on and be allowed to watch fights.
Fight challenges are emailed to you.
Playstation Eye compatible (for photo game face and on screen display for fight intros)
Deep �Offline Amateur� career with the option to go to Pro Career either online or offline
Adaptable AI for offline mode.
Deep online career mode stat tracking and scouting
Career mode boxer aging.
No Cheating. If you are the one to disconnect from a fight it�s an automatic Loss and if your DNF gets above say 20%, you are forced to retire from career mode and have the option of continuing offline.
Multiple weight classes and a belting system where you stand to win more money by offering up more belts if you hold more than one, but the option is yours. You just have to offer up one minimum for a title fight.
Feature that lets you save the replays of your knock downs and knock outs.
If EA made this game, I wouldn�t play anything else.
Well Except Socom and NBA, NHL and FIFA Team Play
And EA, Please Look into Team Play for Football� I have great ideas on this one, too!!!!!!!!!!!!