EA has released its first major update for EA Sports UFC, and it's come at a good time for the game's community. The free update adds three new fighters, some much-needed gameplay tweaks and a couple of other fun additions. The full details are available here.

The three fighters are TJ Dillashaw and Takeya Mizugaki at bantamweight and Tyron Woodley in the welterweight division. Dillashaw was the most obvious addition, as the bantamweight champion was noticeably absent from the game's release day roster. He has an overall rating of 95, with a 94 for striking, 96 for ground and 95 for submissions. Mizugaki has a 90 rating, with 89 for striking and 90 for both ground and submissions. Woodley emphasizes his explosive striking, with 93 for stand-up, 89 on the ground and an 86 for submissions. His overall rating is a 91. Adding two bantamweight fighters to the roster freshens things up, as online matches had gotten stale with lots of Renan Barão and Jose Aldo. Woodley adds another dynamic striker to mix it up at welterweight with GSP, Nick Diaz and Johny Hendricks.

In terms of gameplay and tuning, EA has actually changed quite a bit. As much as I've really come to appreciate how each of the systems interact in the game flow, there were still some obvious omissions and missing elements that could clearly be added. EA has gone further than I thought they would in the first update, as they've addressed some of the biggest gripes the community had about exploits and gameplay balance. Overall, I'm liking a lot of the changes, as I feel the gameplay has a more deliberate pace that punishes some of the cheap tactics people have gotten used to relying on.

The key changes touted by EA are:
 

A fun feature that was missing from the release version. It's great to see this added, and it's pretty simple to walk out with your hand extended and touch gloves to start a round. Even cooler, your fighter will bring his hand down if the other guy strikes at you, preventing some unsportsmanlike fools from abusing this situation.
 

Certain knockouts and TKOs already allowed some strikes, but now you can get in extra shots in most scenarios, and you can even jump on top of an opponent to keep blasting him when he's down. It was fun in the THQ games, and it's a fine addition here.
 

This is a great change, as power slams from a double-leg takedown could get quite frustrating, especially if an opponent or AI spammed them in certain low-stamina situations. This way, a successfully blocked power takedown actually results in a sprawl (new animation) to instantly give you a choke position and a potential back mount. Single-leg takedowns will still be effective, but it's nice to see the power takedowns toned down by this counter.
 

A lot of users got frustrated that they couldn't break away when in a Thai clinch along the cage. Honestly, this position isn't the death sentence it seemed to be when the game first came out, but nonetheless, this is an acceptable addition to me, as you can attempt a push-off in every other situation in the game.
 

Another welcome change here, as certain fighters had absurd power takedowns and ground sweeps from the bottom (when in side control) that they'd just never be able to do in real life. These are rare instances in actual fighting, so I think they should be saved for elite fighters in the game. Even now, the power takedown has a proper counter (as noted above), and the revised timing window on the ground means that high-level fighters won't be able to run wild with side-control sweeps.

This also helps cement the ground game to me as something much more interesting and realistic than what the THQ games offered, as those just ended up being sweeps and reversals every few seconds.
 

These two are huge, as stamina has been a hot topic in the online community. After playing some matches (offline and online), these changes absolutely slow the pace of the action, and you WILL be gassed by the third round. Even high-level fighters like Jon Jones, Uriah Faber, Renan Barão, Chris Weidman and Cain Velasquez were gassed in matches I had (both myself and opponents), and this resulted in a lot more judicious use of striking and takedowns and less spamming overall. I had plenty of exciting matches before, but there was also some goofy stuff going on from time to time. Now it seems like most matches will have a lot more pace and less knockdowns, and the ground game will end up being more important (as the striking was absolutely king before this patch).
 

This is a very welcome change as well, as too often a fighter on the bottom could sweep from full guard to full mount. A move like this is for high-level guys, and it should be very rare. I found it much easier to block this sweep in matches I played, and it only happened when I let my stamina get fairly low. The full guard is really a neutral state for both fighters (bottom guy having sub opportunities and top guy having some basic striking options), so it's good that the bottom guy no longer has a big edge.

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There are some other changes in this update as well, including an absolutely necessary fix for a user's ability to posture up and land a free strike. The online community debated this one for a while, but really it was a silly way to get free shots (resetting your opponent's block) and even finish fights when the user's head was in the red. Another stamina balance means that when playing with an accelerated clock, damage and stamina will be valued accordingly. I definitely noticed this in some online matches.

The update also fixes some physics and glitch issues, and it adds a new tournament for online mode as well a red belt division to reward black belts who want to go one step further.
 

It's awesome that this update was free, as having some new fighters, gameplay wrinkles and exploit fixes keeps things feeling fresh. My early matches, both offline and online, using the patch has yielded more realism and balance, and I'm excited about future updates.