There are many things to like about the upcoming iteration of the EA UFC video game series. The rating system is not one of them.
As the release of EA’s third UFC title approaches, stats of top fighters have been made public. Positive feedback from social media would indicate that the game seems to be moving in the right direction mechanically. There still seems to be some demand for some old features from the THQ games like Pride Mode, but overall everyone seems to be pleased with EA UFC 3. However, there is one glaring issue with the game and that is the stats of the fighters.
Some of the most egregious examples are Fabricio Werdum, Demian Maia, and Jacare Souza not having a 99 (max) grappling rating. Conor McGregor, who is among the worst in the UFC in terms of stamina, has a rating of 88. That is just one point lower than noted workhorses Donald Cerrone and Frankie Edgar, and the same rating as Clay Guida. Conor’s grappling stat is also higher than Guida’s.
There are heavyweights with better stamina and offensive output than Conor, and to give him the same stamina and better grappling than Guida is an insult to every MMA fan. There are some other weird ones as well. Gastelum having 88s across the board seems a bit lazy. GSP having less health than Wonderboy seems a bit odd. Erick Silva having better stats than anyone in anything is criminal.
Alistair Overeem’s health being at 90 makes us think that no one has actually watched his fights or looked at his record. For perspective, Andrei Arlovski, Todd Duffee, and Travis Browne have a health rating of 85. Derrick Lewis has a rating of 89. Stipe Miocic, Daniel Cormier, Junior dos Santos, and Fabricio Werdum all have a health rating of 91. So they’re saying a guy who has been stopped 14 times by strikes sits between those fighters. You’d have to combine the KO losses of several of the fighters just listed to match Overeem’s record.
On the women’s side, things seem to make sense for the most part. Possibly due to there being less of them. The only thing we would like tweaked is Rose Namajunas’ striking score considering how she beat Joanna. Not saying it should be higher than Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s or Karolina Kowalkiewicz’s but it deserves a slight bump. It doesn’t seem they knew what to do with Cris Cyborg so they basically gave her Amanda Nunes’ stats even though Cyborg is the more refined of the two. And Cyborg definitely has better stamina than Nunes.
It would be interesting to find out what panel of experts EA consulted when putting together their scores. Adjusting the scores for accuracy would make players rely on their own skills and not necessarily the stats of their chosen fighter. And yes, that means making all those Conor fans work around his weak kicks and terrible cardio. On the bright side, Mighty Mouse has better stats than everyone at flyweight and bantamweight. He also has the highest overall score among champions and most likely the entire roster with an average of 93.5.
