After my “Fight Night Round 4: Hopes and Concerns” article last week, a lot of people responded that they felt the career mode was what needed the most improvement. Admittedly, EA has struggled with their boxing career modes in the past, providing a relatively restricted experience which doesn’t vary much from time-to-time. While EA hasn’t suggested how much of an overhaul the career mode will receive in Round 4, here is what I imagine the OS community would consider to be the “perfect career mode.”

It all starts with the boxer. Obviously, extra create-a-boxer options are always a plus. I want to see a name database, so we don’t have to go by nicknames for every fighter, as well as more choices for nicknames. As far as attributes go, there should be more of them obviously. Varying punch power and speed for the left and right hands is something we’ve been expecting for a long time, as well as individual punch ratings for jabs, hooks, crosses, etc.

Also, created boxers shouldn’t be able to have maxed out stats in every category. The gamer should have to choose what kind of boxer they want to be, and focus on those attributes. Do you want to be a quick boxer, who scores a lot with jabs and crosses, or a KO artist with a face-crunching left hook? Now you should have to decide and train accordingly. Where your boxer is from should also affect the career mode experience. Perhaps you can choose from a list of gyms in different cities around the world that have training bonuses for certain attributes. So if you want to be a power boxer, and the Detroit gym is known for power, than you can choose to train there. If your fighter happens to be from the D, than it’s inherently easier for them to build power.

Another really important feature that’s been missing from EA’s boxing games is rankings. There is no excuse for not having a dynamic rankings system. By focusing on this, EA could open up the entire career mode experience immensely. Instead of offering us a few choices at a time, the game could allow us to schedule our own fights based on the rankings system. Obviously, at the beginning we shouldn’t be allowed to challenge for the belt, but we should be able to decide if we want to try to take a shot at a better fighter, or beat on some scrubs to improve our attributes. This would replicate real-life much more accurately as you could have boxers with great records who haven’t fought any real opponents, and guys who may have taken a few losses but have a rep for not being afraid to take on harder fights.

With rankings, of course, comes belts. There should be multiple belts and the opportunity to unify them. Earning a belt shouldn’t be a matter of playing the game long enough, but rather making the right decisions throughout your career to earn a shot at a belt-holder. Also, there should be the ability to create many more boxers than in previous games so we can fill the rankings with our own creations similar to the Knockout Kings-era.

Within the career mode itself, the experience needs to be a bit more diverse. Instead of picking one of three fights, playing one of three mini-games, and than fighting, the game should allow us to schedule a fight against whoever we can, and then plan out our entire schedule for the time in between signing the contract and stepping on the canvas. Obviously, they need to add more training games, but perhaps we could be allowed to choose three for each fight. If you want, you could do one exercise three times to really boost a particular attribute, or you could mix it up to just improve your fighter all-around.

You should also be able to control things like diet, and other exercise, to really diversify the experience. Do you want your fighter to bulk up, or do you want him to slim down? Adjust what you eat and how much you jog to affect those types of things. Perhaps we could even have a weigh-in where your boxer would be required to make weight. Mess around on the training end, and suffer the devastation of not making weight. While all these additions might slow down the pace of the career mode, they would also add significance to each fight, as you’d have to focus on how you want to tweak your fighter for each individual contest. Also, the more you have to do between fights, the more important it is to win so all that effort isn’t in vain.

All of these factors ultimately point towards the experience in the ring. The gameplay needs to reflect the changes that have been made in the career mode. One of the biggest changes that needs to be implemented in this respect is the pace of the fights. Whether they accelerate the clock, or shorten the length or number of rounds, EA needs to have some fights go the distance. In fact, if a player chooses to develop a quick boxer instead of a power puncher, they should expect to see a lot of their fights go to the cards. The aforementioned attributes should also come into play, as boxers work with one hand versus the other according to their style.

With all the early information suggesting massive gameplay tweaks, the likelihood that EA focuses much on the career mode is somewhat low. Nevertheless, with a few modifications it could be a lot more enjoyable than in the past. Give us dynamic rankings, belts, and the occasional fight going the distance, and that would probably be enough to keep the dogs at bay. Then again, with every subsequent release the gamer expects more and more. We still have a lot of time before Fight Night Round 4 comes out, let’s keep our fingers crossed that EA has a few more tricks up their sleeve.