EA Sports UFC 5 Launch Changes Previewed After Beta

EA Sports UFC 5 comes out later this month on October 27th, but ahead of that release date, the game got a beta in September to let people try it for the first time. The closed beta resulted in feedback from the fighting game community regarding what worked and what didn't work in EA Sports UFC 5, and after that feedback, EA Sports has since returned with a list of what's changing between now and the time the game releases. Those changes involve some key parts of UFC 5 including blocks, combos, and more with these changes essentially giving us an early look at the game's patch notes for launch day.

The patch notes for what's changing encompass two broad areas: UFC 5's gameplay itself, and the presentation of the game. Those notes can be found in full below: 

Gameplay

Blocking was being broken too easily.

• Blocking was in the middle of tuning in the Closed Beta build. It was weaker compared to UFC 4, but has been retuned to its original strength for launch.

Jabs are too good for block breaking.

• The jab has been severely nerfed. We did three things with the Jab:
• Nerfed the stopping power from 40% to 30%. You need to hit people earlier in order to stop them with the jab.
• For those unfamiliar with how stopping power works, those percentages are how early you need to hit people during the execution of their strike in order to stop them. Before you could hit people up to 40% of the execution of their own attack and stop them, now it's going to be 30%. ]
• Nerfed the speed of the advancing jab by a couple of frames.
• Nerfed the jab damage by 20%.
• Additionally, we nerfed the damage of the straight/cross by 10% which will further help to limit the jab to straight combo effectiveness at block breaking.

Knee and elbow combos are too strong.

• These have been heavily nerfed since the Beta. The combos were slowed down, elbow to elbow and more so ones that mix knee and elbow. Furthermore, the built-in back lean evasion of the knees has been removed and the rear knee itself was slowed down a bit.

Head Movement consumes too much stamina.

• Fixed. Lunges were also made to consume less stamina.

Excessive tracking of strikes.

• We have fixed an issue that made strikes track more than they should in some circumstances.

Ground and Pound reversals are too easy.

• We have made noticeable changes to how stamina behaves during ground and pound attacks.
• Reversals will now properly require a set up, such as the attacker throwing multiple punches and missing a few, to concede the stamina advantage required for a big reversal.
• On the other side of this change, head movement from the submissive fighter will not consume as much stamina. Please note, however, that the GnP Elbows are a high risk and reward strike and can be reversed by head movement, even without a stamina lead from the defender.

Too many knockdowns can happen.

• Fighter resilience and health events have been tuned, resulting in fewer instances of repeated knockdowns before a knockout occurs.
• We will continue to tune this variable and others that are related following post-launch feedback.

Doctor Stoppages can happen without the injury looking severe enough.

• In the Closed Beta, the doctor stoppages did trigger properly according to the amount of damage dealt but the visuals might have not looked accurate. This is specific to swelling stoppages. The eye might not have swelled shut or the forehead bump might not have grown big enough. This has been fixed since the Closed Beta.

The Straight to Lead Overhand combo is too fast.

• Both the regular and slipping versions are fixed for launch. They have been slowed down and the version that played an advancing overhand instead of a stationary one is now playing the stationary one.

New uppercut animations look awkward.

• Addressed the uppercut animations.

Fighters get stuck when entering some submissions.

• All of the known cases of this issue have been fixed since the Closed Beta build.

Releasing the struggle from the heel hook can prevent transitions from happening for a while.

• Fixed since the Closed Beta build.

Ref interruptions for doctor checks happening when fighters are in the middle of the action.

• This has been fixed. There are edge cases of fighters advancing and striking right after the ref calls for a pause. But we have fixed the cases where fighters are already close and striking. The ref won't interrupt in those scenarios.

Stamina is too abundant, especially in the stand-up.

• With the buffs to defense it is easier to make opponents miss and drain more of their stamina. The increased defensive pace of the fight is also likely to open opportunities for more body shots, which drain stamina as well.
• Stamina is among the trickiest elements to tune, because there are direct and indirect factors that add up and cause a snowball effect. We are treating stamina tuning as a very high priority for our future updates and we know how important it is for the matches to have an authentic flow. We will continue to monitor community feedback on how stamina cost feels during the matches.

Presentation

Jittery Arcade Camera.

• The Arcade Camera is meant to move more quickly to prioritize staying perpendicular to the fighters and maintaining the directional inputs more consistent. Even so, there were camera issues that made some motions more jittery than they had to be. The camera has been improved since the Beta build.

Wrong camera during ground fighting.

• Several cases of certain grappling moves breaking the ground camera have been fixed since the Closed Beta build. The Beta did reveal a couple new instances, which are targeted to be fixed in post launch patches.

Lack of referee interactions.

• This is an issue that has seen improvement since the Beta. We have several animations for the actual ref interactions and we are still improving the logic that makes them trigger properly and more frequently. We will keep working on them to make the physical interactions, especially the heavier ones, happen as frequently as they can.

Fighters may slide upon being struck, legs can appear too wobbly when struck, arms can flail too much on big hit reactions and fighter reactions can look unnatural during simultaneous hits.