UFC Career Mode Thoughts: Opinions Wanted - TCrouch's Blog

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UFC Career Mode Thoughts: Opinions Wanted Stuck

Posted on May 20, 2009 at 05:24 PM.

(7)

So I'm plugging along in my UFC career as the heavyweight that I am (of course I created myself).

I've discovered through trial and error that you really need to be a gym rat to progress quickly enough to be competitive with the "real" fighters. Early on, I would train a little bit, rest the next week to go back to 100% stamina, then repeat. I found out several months into my career that I really wasn't improving enough.

What I've found out is that my career is playing out like many poor souls in the UFC. I started on Advanced, and quickly did away with my first 3 opponents with KO's. I was fighting the highest ranked fighter on my list, and quickly shot up into the high teens within a couple fights. Then I got paired up against my first real fighter, old Mark Coleman.

I got manhandled.

I was thrown around, blasted, and pounded out. I discovered I look great against tin cans, but against "real" competition I've been exposed. I'm now, much later in my career, a perfect 8-0 against fictional fighters, but an equally perfect 0-4 against Coleman, Cro Cop, Vera, and Herring.

What's worse is Vera and Herring were getting thoroughly dominated (about as badly as Cro Cop punished me), and then I did something stupid and got caught with a quick KO blow.

So I'm thinking of how I'll run my next career for optimum progression (after I see how this career defined by mediocrity plays out, of course).

I found in my last few bouts that if I really burn the midnight oil at the gym, dropping my stamina down to 5% or something similar, that I can get huge results from fight to fight. I just have to be careful to go into a fight with at least 80% stamina to be effective. It's pretty impressive how it can simulate needing to really put in the time in the gym and not just do whatever's comfortable, because how many fighters get in the cage without having any sorts of injury issues? I don't know of any. So I know I'm going to spend every waking second in the gym this next go round (and even the rest of this current guy).

Do you think that you should be a more well-rounded fighter across most skills? I'm raising them to be about equal, but I'm thinking of really pouring points into the striking game, or perhaps ground and pound, to really have a strength.

At least that way I may have a chance to do serious damage, while being severely underpowered (at least early on) in other areas. I may be able to just hang on and survive a take down, waiting for a stand up (hello Tim Sylvia).

What do you think? Well rounded, equal progression, or come up with a serious strength right up front and then round out after you start creating problems for people?

Comments

# 1 stlstudios189 @ May 20

This game sounds awesome. I love the UFC and must get this game. I usually build equally but always have a strength. If you have a 65 rated fighter overall but his striking is an 80 you have a chance against some better fighters.

# 2 JohnDoe8865 @ May 20

Another great read TC. This game is so nice in so many different ways. The career mode is very in-depth with strategy as you mentioned.

Hope to see you online sometime.

# 3 shawnhobs @ May 21

Ditto! I started my career last night and I was cocky whipping through the no names then came across Coleman and was pounded until finally I was KO'd in the 3rd round. I'm thinking that I'm going to start over and spend more time in the gym. I felt like I was spending enough time in the gym with my first fighter but I wasn't sparring enough. I think I'm going to spend more time sparring and less time trying to get increase me power, speed and stamina. I'm also going to skip any autograph sessions that come up in the begining... I just can't afford to lose a week of training!

Great write up! The career mode is fun and seems like it's going to be very challenging. My only complaint is that it takes to long to navigate the menu system as it loads the various screens. Maybe I'll turn off auto-save, if that doesn't work I'll try copying the game to disk to see if that will help any.

# 4 TCrouch @ May 21

I'll agree, the saving waits are tedious. I was simply editing some trunks and a buddy wanted me to join his fight. It took me a full 2 minutes to get out of the bloody career mode.

# 5 ghostlight85 @ May 21

I don't think you can be well rounded, at least not right away. I think at the very beginning you should be decently rounded, but you need to quickly isolate a couple skills to get good at so you can deal enough damage to be able to finish. Otherwise, a better fighter like Cro Cop will decimate you and you'll have no recourse. Maybe deep into career you can start to round out and become a complete fighter, but I think if you try to be solid at everything you'll end up good at nothing.

# 6 shawnhobs @ May 21

Saving the game to my harddrive made a huge difference when it comes to the saves... it also made a huge differnece when changing the appearance of a fighter. If you have 7GB available it's worth it to save the game to disk.