UFC 4 Changes Based on Your Closed Beta Feedback

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

*CONDITIONS, LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS APPLY. SEE ea.com/ea-access/terms AND ea.com/ea-access FOR DETAILS.