Not sure if you guys have seen this yet:
https://www.ea.com/games/ufc/ufc-4/n...d-beta-changes
EA SPORTS UFC® Players,
When we invited you to participate in a closed beta of EA SPORTS UFC® 4, it was to hear directly from players about the things that they would like to see updated, optimized and tweaked. Many of you have helped us do exactly that — you have been passionate, vocal and specific about changes you would like to see in the game. After reviewing your feedback our team has been working to implement a number of changes that will be going live through two patches: one for the EA Access Play First Trial* on August 7th and one for the worldwide launch on August 14th.
While we will be including a full patch list at the bottom of this article, we wanted to highlight a few key improvements we will be implementing that were highly requested from the community. Firstly, fighter likenesses will be improved to more closely resemble their real-life counterparts. That means you can expect to see updates for things like hairstyles, facial features, and more. Yes — that means Cowboy will be getting his beard. The majority of the likeness changes will be reflected in the patch going live at worldwide launch on August 14th.
Fighter models were a major area of concern from the community and another popular request we will be addressing is the lack of muscle definition for many fighters. Fighters’ bodies will be updated to more accurately show their muscle definition — a change you will see reflected in our patch coinciding with the EA Access Play First Trial. Further improvements to the presentation are covered in the full patch list include fixes to facial animations/deformations and glove touch functionality.
Beyond presentation issues, there was a lot of great feedback around education, controls, and gameplay tuning. You can expect to see these changes for the EA Access Play First Trial patch. Requests for more tutorials and education were one of the biggest pieces of feedback we saw during the beta and we’ve added a training manual feature which will allow you to learn the controls behind submissions, striking, ground and pound, and the clinch. The training manual can be found under offline modes in the main menu and game help in the pause menu. Additionally, the new career mode amateur phase has an onboarding system that will help to teach you everything from the basics to the new gameplay features. The full patch list also includes improved responsiveness for inputs, an added HUD for ground and pound, and various gameplay tuning.
The intent of our closed technical beta was to tune the game in order to help make EA SPORTS UFC® 4 the best that it can be and thanks to you and your feedback, we have made the game better. Thank you for your support, we are grateful to have dedicated fans who are so passionate about collaborating with us and providing feedback. We eagerly look forward to the EA Play First Trial, worldwide launch, and continuing to listen to and interact with the best fighting game fans in the world.
Full Patch List:
General
- Added training manual feature. Learn the controls and the meta behind submissions, striking, ground and pound, and the clinch. The training manual can be found under offline modes in main menu and game help in the pause menu
- At launch UFC community tutorial videos will be added as well, these will cover deeper gameplay meta/strategy including ground game and submissions
- Added skip functionality to pre-fight and post-fight emotes
- Fixed an issue with lack of blood/damage when playing consecutive matches
- Fixed issue causing notable ear deformation
- Fixed facial animation issue affecting fighter likeness on fighter select screen and in fighter portraits
- Tuned muscle definition on all fighter models
- Fixed an issue with glove touch functionality
Miscellaneous updates to some UFC fighter appearances/likenesses (Not all of these will be available for the EA Access Play First Trial, some may not show until worldwide launch on August 14th). Notable changes:
- Donald Cerrone – hairstyle and facial hair (beard)
- Paul Felder – body proportions and facial hair (increased width/volume of upper torso)
- Paulo Costa – body proportions (increased width/volume of Costa’s torso and shoulders)
- Stephen Thompson – body proportions (reduced size of head)
- Cody Garbrandt – updated body likeness and facial hair
- Sean O’Malley – hair color
- TJ Dillashaw – updated body likeness
Striking
- Fixed animation issue with jab into jumping spinning body kick combo
- Fixed an issue where jab feints were affecting takedowns
- Improved responsiveness of combo inputs
- Fixed issues with strikes not triggering if the input could also be used for a cage strike. For instance, fighters who had the cage superman punch could not perform the regular superman punch.
- Fixed animation issues with spinning elbow
- Fixed sprinting knee inputs
Grappling
- Added player indicators to the submission HUD to identify who’s attacking and defending
- Takedown denial now taxes attacker’s stamina
- Depleting health in side control now leads to knee on belly
- Fixed an issue where grapple assist sometimes lead to additional inputs
- Fixed dead frames on the transition to knee on belly
Ground and Pound
- Added HUD during ground and pound to highlight available transitions and submissions
- Added ground and pound transition from half guard up to full guard for the sub fighter
- Increased stamina penalty for missed strikes during ground and pound
- Tuning: lowered temporary damage for most positions
- Tuning: reduced vulnerability when posting to straights
- Tuning: increased permanent damage
Submissions
- Improved visibility of submission HUD options
- Submissions have been tuned:
- Decreased movement penalty for the defender.
- Decreased the effect of small stamina advantages.
- Decreased submission strength for most submissions - the Back Flat Rear Naked Choke was the only exception. This was done in a way that increases the contrast between the stronger and the weaker submissions.
Clinch
- Sub fighter's strikes no longer interrupt cage power takedowns
- Added single leg drive from knee catch position
- High block no longer interrupts clinch cage takedowns
- Cleaned up animations for knees in the catch teep kick position
- Removed blocking of dominant fighter's body knees from single under cage. These are supposed to be countered with the wizer escape, pressing the left stick towards the opponent’s underhook, the opposite direction to the one used for the regular escape.
AI
- AI can now defend cage single under body punches
- Decreased the speed of harder AI response to submission prompts
- AI submission skills have been tuned on various difficulties
- Increased the AI’s ability to defend strikes in cage single under when hurt
- Fixed an issue where the AI was unable to defend back pack position
- Fixed an issue where the AI idles in cage back clinch
- Added 30+ new custom AIs for roster fighters
- Updated AI movement and cage awareness logic
- Increased the effect of the opponent’s stats on AI gameplan
- Camera
- Camera adjusted during Imanari Roll
There's also a deep dive gameplay blog that was released:
https://www.ea.com/games/ufc/ufc-4/n...eplay-deepdive
UFC 4 - New Gameplay Feature Details
Hello EA SPORTS UFC fans. We’re getting very close to the launch of UFC 4 and before the game becomes available, we wanted to provide a deeper look into the biggest gameplay changes to give you a better understanding of how and why they came to life. When you get your hands on the game, the best way to learn these new features will be through the new career mode amateur phase, the new training manual, or in practice mode.
Dynamic Striking Inputs
We’ll start with the new dynamic striking inputs because this involves a change to the entire control scheme and leads into a few of the other bigger gameplay updates with the clinch and takedowns. Dynamic striking inputs are a new control scheme that recognizes button “taps” and button “holds” allowing us to reduce the overall number of button inputs needed to be pressed simultaneously to perform certain strikes. This allowed us to simplify overly-complex input patterns while simultaneously increasing the number of possible inputs and strikes for a fighter.
In UFC 3, there were some strikes that required you to press 5 or 6 controller inputs to perform. Our goal was to reduce the complexity by making some of the actions simpler to perform in terms of dexterity. In UFC 4, button taps and button holds will perform different moves. The threshold for a button hold is (8) frames or (~0.25) seconds, but that doesn’t mean there is an 8 frame delay. We wanted to make sure that holding a button didn’t feel delayed or unnatural to the flow of the match, so we developed a new system that allows striking animations to blend seamlessly into the specific strike when holding a button versus tapping. This new system has increased the overall input responsiveness compared to UFC 3.
This means that in UFC 4 there are no strikes or moves that require the player to press more than (3) buttons at the same time. The controls for the vast majority of core strikes, the ones players use most often, remain unchanged, i.e. jabs, hooks, leg kicks, roundhouse kicks, etc. The use of fewer button inputs and the button “hold” mechanic comes into play when you want to throw things like (Overhands) or (Spinning Side Kicks).
As a specific example, in UFC 3 if you wanted to throw a (Body Jumping Side Kick) as Connor McGregor, you needed to press the following buttons simultaneously:
LT + LB + RB + B {L2 + L1 + R1 + Circle}
And on UFC 4 you only need to press:
LT + B (Hold) {L2 + Circle (Hold)}
Fluid Clinch System
As we’ve already mentioned, we completely overhauled the Clinch gameplay in UFC 4 by expanding our use of RPM Tech. The clinch looks, feels, and plays completely different than it did in previous games. We decided to focus on the clinch based on feedback from the community. Our goal was to make the clinch to feel more exciting and intuitive and we believe that the new system is the best yet.
In UFC 3 the clinch was essentially a standing version of the RS-based grappling game. With UFC 4 the clinch has become a modified version of the striking game. You can enter the clinch with a modified button input (RB + X) {R1 + Square}, transition to different clinch positions with button inputs (RB + Y {R1 + Triangle} or driving the opponent to the cage with LS), go for trips (RB + A or B) {R1 + X or O}, and throws or flying submissions too (LT + RB + X) {L2 + R1 + Square}. The clinch also depends on the context of the situation you are in. For example, you can get into the back clinch by ducking a hook (RS) and using the clinch input (RB + X) {R1 + Square} to grab the opponents back.
Part of the clinch system includes all-new kick catching mechanics that leverage RPM tech for more fluid movement, strikes, and trips. To catch a kick you will need to make sure to have quick and precise timing on your block. For example, to catch a roundhouse or front kick to the body you will need to time your low block (LT + RT) {L2 + R2} and execute right before your opponent’s leg hits your fighter’s body.
But the biggest difference you should notice is how much more fluid the striking and locomotion is within the clinch. Breaking out of, or holding onto, the clinch is based on locomotion (how you move your fighter). If your opponent is holding you in the clinch, try to move away from them. If your opponent is trying to escape your clinch try to stay close to them. Depending on where you are in the octagon, doing either of these won’t always be so simple. It’s easier to maintain the clinch when you have the opponent pressed against the cage, but harder to hold on to it in open space.
Takedowns
We also extended the use of RPM Technology to overhaul takedowns. This brings more variety into takedown gameplay, where players can use locomotion to finish or escape takedown attempts. Similar to the clinch, takedown attempts are now triggered with various modified button inputs and are defended by holding low block.
The result of a takedown attempt depends on how they are defended. If your opponent saw it coming and was preemptively blocking low (LT+RT) {L2 + R2}, they will deny the takedown. If your opponent reacts a little slow, both fighters will enter a takedown drive. In this situation, both players can use locomotion to try and finish or escape the takedown attempt. If you’re trying to finish the takedown, push towards your opponent and use the (LS) to steer them in different directions and keep them off balance. If you’re defending, continue to hold (LT+RT) {L2 + R2} and flick (LS) in the direction they steer you. If you catch your opponent completely off-guard with a takedown attempt, you can pull off a spearing takedown too.
New Submissions
With submissions, we wanted to give a unique feel when going for a joint submission versus a choke submission. UFC 4 introduces two all-new submission games; one for choke submissions, and one for joint submissions. For those of you that have played other fighting games with submissions or grappling, these should probably feel familiar. They are both based on the premise of the attacker staying on top of the defender.
In UFC 3 the old submission system was largely based on executing mixups as fast as possible, where the new systems in UFC 4 rely more on staying calm and using finesse. Whether you are using the stick or the trigger buttons, being smooth and controlled with your movements will help you survive. If you had the chance to participate in our Closed Beta and you want to ask; yes - submissions have been tuned to be less OP.
Grapple Assist
For experienced EA SPORTS UFC players that are capable in the ground game, the most important thing you need to know is that you can change the grapple controls to legacy UFC 3 controls in the settings menu. The grapple assist control system was created as a way to make the ground game less complex for newer users, but in talking with our Game Changers and community we knew that it was important to maintain the option for deeper and more advanced controls.
The way grapple assist works is very simple. Pushing UP on the (LS) will make the fighter attempt a get up or transition to the nearest position where a get up is available. Pushing LEFT on the (LS) does the same for submission attempts, and pushing RIGHT on the (LS) does the same thing for postured ground and pound positions. Transition defense works the same as on UFC 3. You can deny an opponent’s transition by pressing (RT) {R2} and matching the direction of their movement with the (LS).
You can also set the grapple controls to Hybrid, which means both control scheme are active. Grapple Assist transitions are performed with the (LS), and Legacy Grappling transitions with the (RS). The HUD will show the Legacy Grappling information so that a player using the Assist controls can see what transitions the fighter uses when they go for one of the Grapple Assist objectives.
Ground & Pound
For UFC 4 we wanted to make postured up ground and pound moments bigger opportunities to finish the fight. This involves updating the striking animations, improving the presentation, increasing the severity of postured up strike damage, and creating new defensive options for the bottom fighter.
Fighter’s in the dominant position can throw strikes faster and those strikes do more damage, but the bottom fighter can defend in different ways. Blocking on the ground is the same as on the feet, press (RT) {R2} to block high and (LT+RT) {L2 + R2} to block low if you’re in a position where your opponent can attack your body. Your block breaks down on the ground the same way it does when standing. Additionally, you can use (RS) to move your head which is effective against straight punches, or us (LB) {L1} and the (RS) to post your arm which is effective against hooks.
The grapple advantage meter works slightly differently in these moments, always shifting towards the bottom fighter’s color until they can eventually break the attacker’s posture by pressing (RT) {R2}. Defending effectively in Ground and Pound situations (i.e. evading straights and posting hooks) will deplete the attacker’s stamina or can possibly result in a sweep or a get-up.
08-06-2020, 11:20 PM
UFC 4 Changes Based on Feedback from the Beta
