Div 20 player since UFC 2, 4K hours, HONEST REVIEW OF THE BETA
I want to give an unbiased and honest review of the beta, as a long lasting and high level EA UFC player, who is also a huge fan of combat sports, MMA, and the UFC. 99% of the reviews I’m seeing on Instagram, X or on here are people who haven’t played the game and are repeating what they’ve seen someone else say on twitter.
BIGGEST CHANGES WE ASKED FOR, going from most to least requested:
New character models - achieved, they look great let’s be real.
Individualistic fighters - achieved, fantastic job, pereira feels awesome, and actually like pereira!
Grappling overhaul- not achieved, they haven’t changed the overall system, but have added new transition animations, more positions and punch opportunities. As a BJJ purple belt myself I appreciate this.
More game modes and career: achieved, yet to be properly shown but look promising.
More realistic striking: achieved, hate to say it, but taking turns pulling hooks like 3,4 and 5, slipping every second uppercut for 25 mins isn’t MMA. The game is actually starting to feel like a reflection of an MMA fight. Footwork and Defense is rewarded, not head movement and eating 2 shots to throw 3.
Overall, out of the 5 biggest changes we asked for, they achieved 4 of them, and did a decent job at rounding out the grappling system. I don’t mind the grappling, but clearly people dislike it. I think the issue is, no matter how they design it, people just want be drawn to grappling because it is by nature more boring.
In MMA, grappling consists of stalling, weighting to pass guard or setup a submission. It’s not 5 elbows from full guard and then throwing up a banana split. Most people will complain about the grappling no matter what because, grappling just is slower and less risky than striking by nature.
Overall, I’m very happy and hopeful with the changes as a guy who plays this game every day after work and hasn’t missed a fight night since Cormier vs Miocic, (yes even the apex cards). We need to remember this is a BETA.
Things that we can all agree needs changing:
The Flow state visual, needs to change. I don’t mind flow state, in fact, I think it’s a fun additive that makes the fighters feel more individual. People dislike it because it’s new. We can all agree however the orange musty thing that hovers around the fighter needs to go. I don’t mind the black and white filter. If you don’t like the black and white filter, just like rocked moments, you should be able to toggle it off in the settings.
I think a good solution to most of peoples anger, simply make a toggle setting so people can chose how they want to enjoy the game, flowstate visuals on, flowstate visuals off.
Same goes for the HUD, EA can fix the complaints of the hud being clunky by giving the player the option to chose what their HUD looks like, this is their game after all.
As a high level player I prefer being able to see all of my health points clearly, instead of the small bars that pop in and out we see in 5. Once again, just give us the option to toggle/ change the size of it.
The sweat splatters and navy blue background needs to go. Whoever thought of this. Just why ? The red backdrop for the Tmboile Arena with the lights on the menu looks AMAZING ! So why has EA decided to make it as ugly und unrealistic as possible ? The Navy Blue is horrible and the lighting is way too dark. As someone who has sat front row for PPV cards, I can’t tell you right now the octagon and its fighters are the most well lit thing on television. Make it way brighter and get rid of the ugly ahh navy hue and shadows. If you wanna hide the crowd replace it with stage lights or phone lights or just black like it is in real life when they shut the lights off.
That’s all I have for DAY 2 of the BETA. I hope someone from EA sees this and actually makes change.