Feedback and Suggestions from a Top 100 Player.

[sevanity]

Warning, this will be a pretty long one, with no TLDR.

So after a long and excruciating trip to the top 100, I now feel like I have had enough time with the game to offer my criticisms towards certain aspects of the game.

I'm not the greatest player in the world, and in a way I'm still learning but I do very much enjoy playing this game and like most of you I want to see it improve, so I'm writing this post.

I'm only going to touch on what I would like to see worked on as a priority in terms of game balance and systems that need tweaking, as I feel like gameplay should be priority over other things like graphics and animations.

Risk-Reward Philosophy

In most fighting games, the way that they balance attacks is very often based on frame-data. In simple terms, a light attack will have low frames and low damage, a heavy attack will have high frames and high damage.

In UFC 4, we do see this in most attacks, a Jab has a small frame startup (low risk) and also deals low damage (low reward). A Roundhouse kick to the head has a large frame startup (high risk) and deals heavy damage (high reward).

However, in a lot of cases - this philosophy goes out of the window, and I feel like in terms of balance, this is the where a lot of problems stem from with the game at the moment - many player actions in the game need their risk-reward values looked at. Here are some examples of bad cases of risk-reward currently in the game:

Clinch. (Low Risk - High Reward)
Small frame startup, no real noticeable vulnerability when launching a clinch, often deals heavy damage, drains opponents stamina on exit.

Takedown. (Low Risk - High Reward)
This is mostly due to TDD being quite difficult to perform (possibly due to input delay online) but also TD attempts do not result in much stamina loss. Infact, TDD drains the defenders stamina. Leads to a ground game where it is very, very easy to hold someone down or GNP them to finish the fight.

Body Jab/Straight. (High Risk - Low Reward)
Significant frame disadvantage on recovery, low damage, no combo potential, vulnerable to virtually any head strikes.

Posture Up - GNP. (Low Risk - High Reward)
Transitions into the most dangerous ground positions in the game (which they should be IMO), yet has some of the fastest transition times.

Submission Attempts (Low Risk - High Reward
Highest potential reward in the game (Win the fight), yet has little to no risk of actually attempting one. No stamina drain for submission attempts, and (I believe) not even a loss of Grapple Advantage.

To promote competitive and balanced game-play, the reward of an action should meet the risk of an action. The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Stamina

Stamina does have an impact on a match, but at the same time Stamina is so forgiving at the moment that it promotes highly aggressive play-styles.

Players are able to throw an abnormal amount of Strikes whilst maintaining an unrealistic amount of Stamina, which sometimes makes the game feel comical.

Some actions like Takedown and Submission attempts have little to no Stamina tax, and many actions performed on the ground do not seem to be impacted much at all by Stamina.

Ground and Pound

Whereas I do like the fact that Ground and Pound feels deadly in this game, I also feel like as a game-play mechanic it feels mostly unfair on the defender.

Defending against GnP feels like a coin flip, actually it's even worse than a coin flip as a coin only has two sides. As the defender you need to Guess between Post Left, Post Right and Head Movement.

As the attacker, you simply just randomly mash the buttons to alternate your strikes between Left/Right Hooks/Straights to the point where you don't even know which punches are coming out, so good luck to your opponent who is frantically trying to guess.

I feel like the delay between punches needs to be either slowed down, or Stamina needs to have a significant impact on mounted punch speed. It should feel like mind games rather than button mashing.

Ground Game

Personally I was rather disappointed seeing that the ground game was mostly unchanged, my play style is mostly stand and bang, but I'm decent on the ground too.

However, because I feel like the ground game is just mostly the same and in my opinion, overpowered right now, I find myself most of the time choosing wrestlers as right now I feel like they just have a huge advantage due to how easy it is to hold people down and get to postured up. Many matches feel like a game of who can take down who first.

I feel like overall the Ground Game is... ok... but I can't help but feel the same stale transition camping problem still resides. If I'm on top of you in Full Guard and you don't have Rubber Guard, I'm VERY likely going to win the entire round just by mostly laying on you. The same goes for most high level players.

I wish the ground game just had more movement, more successful transitions, more emphasis and reward for making transitions and less camping and laying on someone for 5 minutes.

Maybe Grapple Advantage needs to build up slowly over time for the Sub player the longer the Dominant player is camping. I'm not sure of an exact solution to this problem, but it definitely still bugs me a bit.

Head movement, Major lunge, etc.
From what I've experienced, the higher Rank you get, the less of these features you see used.

Major lunging to the side is extremely dangerous, if you get hit with a hook or head kick during these actions, it can do extremely significant damage to you. Not only are they dangerous, but they also drain large chunks of Stamina, and realistically the only benefit you get from them is dodging a couple jabs.

Because of this, they are rarely ever used even by players who play keep-away.

Head movement is in a little bit of a better spot than lunging, but it still feels like the risk very often outweighs the reward.

I would like to see the Stamina cost of all movement actions slightly reduced.

OWC System and Ranked Division System

Although I quite enjoy Ranked, it can often feel very frustrating and even overwhelming to play. The reasoning behind this is the way that points are lost.

Winning a match can net you a few points, but losing a match is catastrophic. I'm literally talking winning matches giving you +2 points and losing a match giving you -100 points.

In a game where a match can go either way in the blink of an eye, this system can be very frustrating - it's inevitable that you're going to lose, no matter how good you are, but if you weren't on a very significant winning streak then you'll be ranking down.

Suggestion:
What this system is missing is Rank Walls or Caps. Other games (including EA's Apex Legends) have points you hit in the Ranked System, where you can no longer down-rank beyond.

If this were implemented, it would make players feel more accomplished when hitting a certain Division and it would also make playing OWC feel less stressful.

I would recommend Division Caps like the following or similar:

3-6-9-12-15-18-19-20

My other suggestion for OWC involves player ducking, at the moment - you can pick and choose opponents by dash-boarding at the character select screen. Personally, I fight anyone - except for people with high Ping, however - I have noticed quite a few other high Ranked players simply back out when they see my points.

Here's what I would suggest:
- Remove players Gamer Tag / Username from this menu.
- Remove players Division Points from this menu.
- ADD a Cancel Match button (This allows you to still back out if connection to opponent is bad)

Weight Class Rotation

So, it's not a secret that most people are not a fan of this system - I personally don't have much of a problem with it, but I personally don't like playing Heavyweight so whenever it rotates to the Heavyweight Division, I just turn the game off for an hour. So I can definitely understand the outcry about this system.

Suggestion:
- Remove Weight Class Rotation.
- Let us pick one Favourite Weight Class. (Can change at any time)
- When you search for a match, it will firstly search for someone who matches your favourite choice.
- If no one matches your choice, then it will look for someone else who also didn't find a match.
- Then it will randomly choose either your favourite weight class, or your opponents favourite weight class for the match.
- If a player does not set a favourite weight class, then they will get matched up with random weight classes.

With this idea, we still have all players in the same queue and at least most of the time, everyone will get to play their currently set favourite Weight Classes.

---------------------

I know I'm only really posting criticism, don't get me wrong I'm thoroughly enjoying the game - I know a lot of people have issues with the game and so do I, but I still feel like this is a great game and I hope that with some tweaks this will become the best UFC game we've ever played!

Thanks for reading.

[tissues250]

I don't agreed that GnP needs to be slow down. You can still block every strikes via high block like UFC3. You don't need to use head movement and arm-block to survive. and If you succeed blocking 2~3 strikes, you are going to get instantly get-up. Also, Sub fighters have an option to survive via using GA, getting automatically posture down. I mean, Sub fighters have many options now than before. So there is no reason to nerf GnP at all.

[jigsaw736]

Is a top 100 player even good ?

I’ll go one further and give you a undefeated ESFL’s competitors opinion.

UFC 3 was more balanced because it had less choices to pick from.

What’s this mean ?

UFC 4 , we are giving choices of picking Between a ****ty situation and even a ****tyer situation.

Examples:

someone puts you in the Thai clinch.

Option A - don’t block your body and eat numerous body knees

Option B - block your body , get caught in a standing guillotine.

Clinched against the cage

Option A - give up the takedown down, and deal with a posture up system that is way to fast in half guard.

Option B - get guillotined

Zabit trip:

Option A - unless your pre denying it , you’ll deny the takedown and he will 100% take your back. So deny the takedown again, get backpacked and mostly likely rear naked choked

Option B : deny the backpack , get taken down in the turtle position.

The options we have in this game really need some tuning. I can’t think of a single time these sort of options presented themselves in 3.

In ufc 3 you had a choice to block or counter everything , you didn’t need to worry about picking one or the other.

[sevanity]

Quote: Originally Posted by tissues250

I don't agreed that GnP needs to be slow down. You can still block every strikes via high block like UFC3. You don't need to use head movement and arm-block to survive. and If you succeed blocking 2~3 strikes, you are going to get instantly get-up. Also, Sub fighters have an option to survive via using GA, getting automatically posture down. I mean, Sub fighters have many options now than before. So there is no reason to nerf GnP at all.

This is not true, you cannot just hold block to survive, your block will be broken and you will start eating shots.

[sevanity]

Quote: Originally Posted by jigsaw736

Is a top 100 player even good ? I’ll go one further and give you a undefeated ESFL’s competitors opinion. UFC 3 was more balanced because it had less choices to pick from. What’s this mean ? UFC 4 , we are giving choices of picking Between a ****ty situation and even a ****tyer situation. Examples: someone puts you in the Thai clinch. Option A - don’t block your body and eat numerous body knees Option B - block your body , get caught in a standing guillotine. Clinched against the cage Option A - give up the takedown down, and deal with a posture up system that is way to fast in half guard. Option B - get guillotined Zabit trip: Option A - unless your pre denying it , you’ll deny the takedown and he will 100% take your back. So deny the takedown again, get backpacked and mostly likely rear naked choked Option B : deny the backpack , get taken down in the turtle position. The options we have in this game really need some tuning. I can’t think of a single time these sort of options presented themselves in 3. In ufc 3 you had a choice to block or counter everything , you didn’t need to worry about picking one or the other.

I did actually say that I'm not one of the best players I only pointed out that I'm in the Top 100 to try to emphasise the fact that I've put a lot of time into the game and I am a decent player who understands more than just the basic mechanics.

I agree with what you're saying entirely, there are multiple scenarios like what you have mentioned where blocking A means extreme danger of B and visa versa. These are called 50-50's in fighting games and usually they are by default broken/OP.

To make it worse, in UFC4 even if you manage to block these attempts, you're not rewarded with any real form of advantage or benefit - however if you fail to block the attempts it can result in you losing the entire fight... Infact it's even worse, as when you block any form of a TD, YOU lose Stamina. So in these scenarios, if you block A you're screwed as they chose B, if you blocked B you're not as screwed, but you still lose Stamina as your "reward".