On Tuesday, Nov. 7, EA dropped new content for EA UFC 5, but there is still work to be done under the hood.
There are new trunks available for Alex Pereira, and there is a new alter ego for Sean O’Malley, capturing him in his Dana White Tuesday Night Contender Series version from 2017. In addition to O’Malley’s alter ego, there’s also a 2017 version of Alex Pereira in his kickboxing attire.
The trailer below shows off the new models as well as some of the other ones that have already been playable since early access.
These updates are excellent and will add to the game’s overall long-term value, but there are three major issues with gameplay that EA must address to adjust what has become a undesirable meta.
I’m going to break down both issues and offer a potential solution. It’s possible one fix could positively affect both situations.
Block Breakers Are Breaking the Game
The most popular stand-up meta in EA UFC 5 is spamming jabs, straights or hooks to break your opponent’s block meter. The user will then continue to throw punches until they’re now damaging the head and/or eyes of their opponent.
With head damage being the most costly of all incoming fire and with facial damage potentially leading to doctor’s stoppages, this approach is way too easy to implement, and too hard to defend. Users can perform slips or ducks to avoid the spamming, but the skill it takes to do this is far greater than the acumen required to button mash strikes until the block meter has been depleted.
Most of the game is far too tactical to allow such a rudimentary approach to reign supreme.
Body Work Doesn’t Pay Off The Way it Should
In EA UFC 4, you could execute a gameplan designed to drain your opponent’s energy through body attacks–especially when you timed the attacks to land after an opponent had thrown an overhand, uppercut or head kick attempt.
It was like chipping away at a tree, but the progress was steady, noticeable and executable even against headhunters who neglected body protection.
In EA UFC 5, working the body is almost always a waste of time. To be successful at this approach, you have to be nearly perfect defending your head, and you have to land repeatedly to the body for a much longer time period than in EA UFC 4.
It’s not logical nor balanced.
Solution: Tweak the Stamina
EA UFC 5 desperately needs a tweak to the way stamina works.
I’ve had fights where I’ve thrown more than 150 strikes in the first round with very little drain on my stamina, and I’ve had opponents do the same thing to me.
Because the stamina drain on strikes is too slow, it makes it easier to spam punches and eliminate your opponent’s block meter.
Likewise, working on the body is a fruitless approach because it is too difficult to damage your opponent’s stamina. Body health is separate, but the real impact should be in the effect it has on the fighter’s stamina.
We’ve seen EA UFC evolve into a game that punishes you for taking head damage, but the lack of stamina drain makes it too easy to ding the most vulnerable area of the body.
Pryoxis, one of the top EA UFC players from each of the last three versions conducted a gameplay test that pretty clearly conveys my thoughts. He posted the results on X:
Making stamina drain faster would likely address a multitude of the game’s issues.
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