EA Sports UFC 2

Pudsy33 wrote: »

Duffy might make an appearance?

Deluxe Edition includes up to 30 UFC Ultimate Team Premium Packs ($60 value) delivered over 15 weeks. Internet connection and EA Account required.

OK, so I'm back after almost a week of nothing but UFC events (UFC 2, TUF Finale, UFC 194). Here are a few quick impressions. Some of them are vague because I cant speak specifically about a few things that haven't been discussed (cant go into great depth about the striking yet):

- Roster: The roster is about final and it's the largest MMA game roster ever. There are some BIG surprises that I cant talk about yet but I think everyone will be excited about them.

- Grappling System - I've played every MMA game ever created (back to the Dreamcast days) and this is the most natural system I've seen. Past systems have always felt turn based. For example, I'm in half guard, I try to move to Side Control but you block it...now its your turn and you try to move me back into full guard.

This system feels like grappling. There are more positions, more sweeps and more escapes. Now before you flip out these moves aren't available to everyone. For example, I primarily used Welterweights when I was playing the game because that division was the only one with some of the AI fully installed and the complete move-sets implemented.

In one of my first fights I used a non- top 10 WW who is primarily a striker vs an unranked WW who is primarily a grappler. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the grappler was successful in taking me down by using trips in the clinch. Both times, he proceeded to keep top control for over 2 minutes. I didn't feel cheated at all because my opponent had a much better move-set and ratings on the ground than I did. This sort of thing would've happened in a real fight.

In round 3, I started sick of being held down and managed to get my opponent back into half guard. I started spamming trying to get out from under him and that worked to my detriment. He passed to full mount and submitted me with an arm-bar. That seemed perfect to me. I spammed, it cost me a ton of stamina and my opponent was able to move into a dominant position and finish me.

This never happened in UFC 1.

Bottom line: I love the new system and the devs are still working with the GC's on ways to continue to improve it. There were some small issues that I brought to the Dev's attention (AI fighters were aggressive with position advances on top but not mixing enough strikes; CPU would sometimes randomly stand up from half guard) but even with those issues the system looked great.

AI and Movesets: I have to be a bit vague here because its not fully installed but I like what I see so far. My biggest frustration with UFC 1's striking AI was everyone was a kick-boxer. EVERYONE. Guys who rarely throw kicks would throw kicks constantly.

There were only 10-15 guys who had their full AI and movesets installed but you could see a difference. I played against one boxing HW who rarely throws kicks in real life and in the game...he rarely threw any kicks. Hopefully, Skynet will talk a little about the work he's done on the AI because it deserves some attention and praise.

With that said, I've only seen a small bit of it and I'll really be able to dig into it closer to release. If its stays consistent with what I saw Wednesday, the AI will be in good shape.

Regarding move-sets, the dev team has taken a more intelligent approach. The move-sets for the most part are still works in progress but I was satisfied with the completed ones I saw. There will likely still be discussions about whether fighter X should have a spinning back fist or not. But I don't think there will be any similar to UFC 1 where HWs had Capoeira kicks and Showtime kicks.

I wrote this text after the second Game Changers event, based on my hands-on impressions a lot of "theory-crafting" I had been doing long before and also a little after the event. In the original text there were a couple of mistakes, which GPD was kind to tell me about. I've made the corrections and here is the result... This is an analysis of the meta of Full Guard (FG) and its Postured version.

So, assuming you just got to FG, either by someone's pass or a TD, neither fighter has Grapple Advantage (GA). If their stamina is similar, than their set up is pretty much tied.

One thing I'm loving about this system is that the speed of the transitions is a very important factor and the moves available in most positions offer a variety of speeds. I actually think the players will study the "frames", or something close to it. We will need to think in terms of frame traps (being able to finish your move before your opponent would finish his fastest move) and techs (winning an exchange despite using a slower move, due to some particularity). It is amazing that the franchise has achieved this for the grappling. So, thank you GPD and congratulations.

As I said, knowing who can perform the fastest move is key. In the new system, denials can be rather optional if you're tactical. Why be on the defensive when your offense can beat the opponent's (offense)?

In FG, TOP's basic moves are the passes to HG in either side and posturing up. They are all fast, specially the posture up.

Bottom's basic moves are two get ups, one down (feet on hips) and one to a side (I don't remember if it's the side of the head control or the side of the arm control). Both are slow. Many fighters shall also have submission entries, which are also kinda slow... and sweeps, which are slow, too.

So, TOP clearly has the faster moves and his moves are actually fast, kinda hard to deny, even without a set up. That means that as soon as you get to FG as the top guy, you should be offensive, try some kind of pass. It will beat ANY of your opponent's offense. So he is kinda forced to defend and have a hard time doin so... or is he?

Although having the slower moves, BOTTOM has access to special exchanges. He can win exchanges, even though his moves are slower.

This should affect the players' decision making.

If you hipout (get up) to the same side as the opponent is passing to HG (you turn to the same side as him, while your hip actually goes to the other side), you will keep the hip out for a very quick get up from HG. If your opponent fail to deny it, you win the exchange, you get the get up you wanted. However, if he is experienced and read the exchange, he can sit on the denial, deny you and end up in HG with a GA.

As the TOP guy you may wish to lure or avoid this situation, by passing to the other side, where the hipout doesn't lead to a get up, but to rubberguard. That is, of course, if the opponent doesn't have rubberguard. If he has it, then he might as well use it. Another detail is that even a guy without rubberguard can hipout to that side and make this exchange, with you. But he'd hardly do this, as the move has a very specific niche if the exchange doesn't happen: you just hipout and get back to FG, with the only benefit of sweeping the guy to the other side, by a momentum advantage, kinda like rocking a boat.

But why pass to HG as the top guy, if posturng up is faster? One reason is that posturing up is always in one direction, whereas you can pass to HG in two directions. The other reason is that although posturing up is fast, it has a bad exchange with the feet on hips get up, with similar rules to the exchange between hipout get up and HG pass.

If you posture up while the opponent is getting up, you will posture up and the animation of the get up of the actual postured up position will play out. It looks outstanding. And the TOP guy gets screwed, as his super fast move is beaten by a slow move. However, the TOP guy can still deny the get up, if he can read the motions well enough. You really gotta watch the fighters as they move and realise which exchanges are taking place.

If you're facing a BJJ guy, posturing up is particularly good, as you prolly won't need to worry much about him trying to get up... and also because posture really screws BJJ over in some other ways.

Now lets talk about FG postured up. One sure good thing to do, specially if your opponent can't armtrap you, is punching him. You can mix the height to avoid the block and mix the sides to avoid the armtrap/hip bump.

My prediction is that the cool thing to do will be striking until he blocks you... and, even though he will get some GA for blocking you, you should try to pass. As far as I know there are no sweeps against postured up opponent (unless by armtrap, which shall kinda require some stamina advantage to be viable... so you can be careful to avoid such set ups). If he try a get up, even with the little GA from blocking, it won't be faster than your pass to HG. And even if he try to pull you down to FG tight, your pass won't be much slower normally, so you can still outspeed him if you have stamina advantage or some GA left from having hitting him with a few punches.

And if for some reason all this stuff is seeming linear to you, I got some a surprise for you. Everything changes once a denial happens.

The denier gets a big time GA, something close to the opponent being gassed, in terms of how much it makes him faster, harder to deny.

Then your slow moves become fast, kinda hard to deny... and also able to exchange with the opponent's fast moves. And your fast moves become really really fast. The opponent needs to sit on them and hope to still react well enough.

From this point, I suppose you can guess the consequences. If BOTTOM deny, all his slow stuff suddenly becomes viable. And if TOP deny, all he does becomes super-hard to deny. In FG that is.

In FG postured up, BOTTOM still can't do much, except get up quickly or try to pull the guy back down, forsaking the GA in the process. I think you can really GSP people if you're careful enough and use a lot of posture. You can wreck a BJJ guy from his guard.

The very basic idea of the meta I can summarise is: (a) if you're neutral and have the best exchange options (faster moves, special exchanges or GnP that interrups moves), try them; if not, try to deny... (b) if you have a big advantage (either by GA or stamina) try anything you want, specially big moves; (c) if you have a big disadvantage, try to deny.

paulmclaughlin wrote: »

You've duplicated Thiago Alves :pac: