A friend and I started a career mode last night. It was a last ditch attempt to "get into" the game for both of us. It failed. There is too much micro-management required with camp invites to learn moves, sparring and focused sparring to increase your actual fighting skills, training to boost your strength, speed and cardio, and trying to balance all of that as best as you can to keep your fighters conditioning up and his fatigue down before going into a fight. And then the skill decreases come into play to really heap on the misery. It is not impossible, if perhaps a little too punishing with the decreases, but what it is (as we found it to be), is of next to no enjoyment.
Add to that the fact that I believe the gameplay has taken a step backwards in various aspects, those being the ground game and the clinch battles, and it explains why it is heading out the door for cash or a trade-in. The stand up is improved, the sway system is very cool, and the knock-outs are better implimented. But on the ground and in the clinch it feels loose and chaotic.
There is as much of a success rate to spamming transition attempts (seeing as every third attempt seems to be successful) as there is to actually holding position to do minor but fundamental "laying the foundations" so to speak damage, or letting your opponent either tire themselves out with transition attempts, or leave themselves open to a reversal by being too predictable. The latter is replaced by either being the first to get to that third successive transition, or taking place in an arcade reversal marathon. Perhaps I have failed to take on board some vital information but I find that every opponent, either human or computer controlled, gets out of any position on their third successive transition attempt. It may be more exciting and may level the playing field for those who dread going to the ground but it is not representative of real bouts in the octagon where a fighter can hold an opponent in one position for the majority of a round. I'm sure it is possible to keep a fighter on the ground by transitioning from say full guard to half guard to side control, etc, and throwing in a reversal here and there, but it's not a true representation of how fights go down. If Rashad Evans (for example) wants to keep someone on their back he can do it without needing to transition in and out of positions.
Am I missing something with the ground game or is that simply how it is this time around?
