More exciting matches

[DreamGoddessLindsey]

Does upping the time limit for matches make them more exciting? Decision finishes seem to (rightly IMO) rate lower than most critically. If you give the fighters more time to finish it, does that make for a better critical rating, or do they get so exhausted that they stink it up even worse?

[OctoberRaven]

Some of my best rated matches have gone to to the judges in the 3 rounds of 5 format.

[Paatero]

There's a lot of luck involved, and I wouldn't bet on longer matches being more exciting even if there was a finish, the finish itself doesn't raise the excitement level that much (if at all in the game, I haven't studied it). When the fighters get tired, the fights indeed tend to get very boring, even if there's an unexpected submission or knockout at the end.

 

Then again, well-conditioned fighters would get more time to showcase what they've got and there could be more excitement happening, but I've had good success with the normal 3x5 / 5x5 limits.

[bigtplaystew]

I lengthened the fights and upped the "Of The Night" Bonuses and I didn't notice a tremendous change. I still prefer 10 minute rounds for myself because I just like it that way... but it didn't help me get more exciting fights.

 

Paying attention to matchups did. I feel like good striker vs good striker gets me some good fights, but certainly not always. You have to match guys up correctly.

 

You don't wanna go clinch-striker vs clinch-striker. I personally am of the opinion that two styles together tend to cancel each other out. Whereas if you have a clinch guy vs a guy who likes to keep his distance, you tend to have a more dynamic fight. Two ground guys won't necessarily have a bad fight, as long as you look at the styles. Scouting is more important than many people think -or you can be a cheater and use the in0game editor to look at stats :-)

 

I could be 100% wrong here, I'm just going by what I see in the game.

 

 

Another thing you have to look at is that alot of fighters just don't "Bring it". They are boring fighters and there's nothing you can do. Some guys win but play it safe - leading to poor match ratings (most likely tied to the Killer Instinct stat). Others just don't perform well (probably tied to the consitancy and dedication stats among others) sometimes. Others seem to never be able to have a good fight in a main event.

 

These are all things you have to look at if you want to get better card ratings.

 

Bad matches are unavoidable if you have a full roster, but you want to keep the top of the card as exciting as possible. This will get your company rolling, your PPVS and ratings up, and will boost your popularity if you have consistently good cards.

 

In my company, a guy can be a solid fighter that wins but if he can't put on a good show I get rid of him. There's a few rare exceptions but this keeps my cards exciting. Yea, I might let a good fighter go and he might rise to great success for someone else. But I figure it's better to let him snooze up their main event while I provide an exciting one on a consistant basis.

 

 

 

 

"Fantastic" and "Excellent" fights aren't a super common thing anyway. And they shouldn't be... or they wouldn't be "Fantastic" or "Excellent" they'd just be normal :-)

[DreamGoddessLindsey]

I dunno, I think banking on your critical rating is a mistake because as far as I've seen, there is NO way to predict who'll put on an exciting match. I've tried looking at stats and such, but the only thing that seems to guarantee a good rating is a first round finish. I've never seen a decision rate higher than Decent, and about 75% of fights end in decision.

 

I usually bank on my commercial rating because that's easy to control. I give shots to guys who earn it, not guys who give me critical winners. Even my most exciting fighters have done everything from Poor to Fantastic. No way of predicting it. I even made a character designed to be an exciting fighter and put her in the game and even she only gets good ratings about 60% of the time.

 

I've played over 10 years of game time and it seems to me that critical ratings are a matter of luck and that's about it. That's why I was asking if there was a way to make them better by giving them more time to finish, because finishes have seemingly been the biggest factor in determining whether a fight is good or not.

[Blackman]

I've seen 30 or 60 minute matches who got a good critical rating, but I think most of the times it'll be better using ALPHA-1 rules. That seems the optimal excitement setting.

[BuddyGarner]

Offense is exciting. The lower the defense stats and the higher the offense stats the better.

[kjuice14]

I've seen 30 or 60 minute matches who got a good critical rating, but I think most of the times it'll be better using ALPHA-1 rules. That seems the optimal excitement setting.

 

I agree, although instead of just two rounds, my format is:

10x5x5.

 

The longer 1st round means that somebody is going to be gassed by the third round, and even the second round. In my game with this format i only see decisions by the low level fighters. The majority of my fights usually end in the second or third round by knockout (usually second) or third (usually submission).

 

The problem with a 5 minute first round is the guys still have energy going into the second round meaning the loser of the first round can fight back in the second round and hope for a split decision, or the winner of the first round can just not be risky and again hope for the decision win.

[Acidburned]

In my 20 years as UFC I have had a one round 60 minutes long, three ten minute rounds, first round ten minutes then two five minute rounds and now three five minute rounds I have not noticed it making much difference to the critical rating of the matches. If anything the long 60 minute round produced the worst fights in the history of my UFC.

[ovoj]

1 person who in my game is guaranteed to NOT produce good fights is Kafu Bunya (even Stephens has gotten some greats and 1 fantastic). I've made up my mind to cut the ****er!!

[Mr T Jobs To Me]

Offense is exciting. The lower the defense stats and the higher the offense stats the better.

 

Agree for the most part, here's how I value some of the stats you see in terms of putting on a good fight:

 

Striking Elusiveness (---): You know those fights where both people seem to be swinging at air? It's this stat's fault, and a stat I really prefer to be lower than their striking skills. Unfortunately, it's usually not the case.

 

Chin (++): It's definitely a plus if you have a fighter that can absorb damage, as the more big strikes the better.

 

Conditioning (++): For obvious reasons, once the action slows down the rating drags.

 

Boxing/High Kick Power (+++): Seems like all of my 70% Performance plus crew have one of these in spades, 85%+.

 

Scrambling: (+): It helps shorten potentially dull ground stalemates.

 

Guard Passing (+): Those idiots who can get takedowns but not advance their positions usually have bad fights, because they just lay in guard.

 

Wrestling (-): Takedowns are fine, they lead to something. Wrestling too often leads to prolonged instances of cage humping.

 

EDIT: And though they don't show up on the stat page, I also dislike Feints. People who are good at them tend to use them too much.

[MF DOOM]

Wouldn't the menace stat be the deciding factor? From my brief experience with the game the higher someone's menace, the more likely they are to throw bigger strikes, and more often.

[bigtplaystew]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that I think the poster who said "luck" has more to do with it than anything has something.

 

I autosave the game. So after the card is done, I just close the game and reload it before I advance to the next day, and I can run the same card over and over and over again.

 

I just did it. I used a good card with 3 "main event" level fights, 2 "co main event" level fights, and the rest being "solid undercards" according to my booking screen.

 

I ran the card 10 times to see what results I got. It was pretty funny. Commercially my show didn't waver all that much. I got "Good" 3 times, "Great" six times, and "Fantastic" once.

 

Critically, the results are all over the place. Soemtimes a fight would be "fantastic" and the next time I run it, the same exact fight, it get's a "poor" rating.

 

This tells me there's a random element to it. Which I think is awesome because it makes those rare nights when you get 3 or 4 fantastic fights in a full card something special.

[bigtplaystew]

Wouldn't the menace stat be the deciding factor? From my brief experience with the game the higher someone's menace, the more likely they are to throw bigger strikes, and more often.

 

I think menace as more to do with the marketability of a fighter than anything else. I've turned this down and up experimentally and I found that the only thing from a scouting perspective that is changed is the "marketability" stat.