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I read the wish list and improvement lists on the fight night forum, and let me tell you - those people don't know **** about boxing so I hope Ea doesn't listen to them.
That being said, FNC is the best fight game to date. But to improve it once again would require getting rid of as much noob winning as possible.
A good example would be Andrea Bishop and to a slightly lesser extent Robinson. Many people, even ****ty players can win with these fighters because they have such high stat ratings. I remember in FNR4 however, even with a good boxer and better player could still win with a lesser fighter. This is because of a few reasons.
1) punches in FNC now have ratings that determines a fighters better punches (good jab, cross etc) This is a good idea, however it allows people to abuse a certain punch over and over again, a 20 rated cross is a hard punch to dodge unless you have a fighter with amazing head movement or a high block rating. This scenario right here is competition almost entirely creating by the game, and not the player. On top of that when you get cut by this 20 rated punch it starts landing even more frequently. I've been playing since KO kings 99 and can tell you this is not a fair game play characteristic at all. MY ADVICE: keep the punch ratings but change up the punch blue print. A jab should always be the easiest punch to land, it should also aid in landing other punches (if you jab first and throw a punch quick enough after, the jab blinds the person for a split second) This makes the player work to land his jab in order to land other blows. Only a certain few boxers have worked well with lead straights, and they set them up with a lot of feints before hand, they also were only effective doing this against slower fighters.
2) simplified blocking system. Blocking now has a rating system that determines how good of a defense a boxer has with his hands. N00B Idea. MY ADVICE Having ratings on defense are good and having an active blocking system is great - keep it, but bring back up and down boxing. A player shouldn't be able to use Whitaker and literally hold block down and stand in one place while you can't hit him with anything. This isn't skill nor fun competition. Split it up for diversification. Give a boxer like Whitaker for example, good ratings in all the departments for the defense, but it is up to the player in order to use them effectively (movement, head-movement, blocking with the new system) By the changing the blocking system back to an up down system (only with more probability now with an active system running as well) will allow players to bring an opponents hands down with body shots and give more room for feints and set up punches.
3). Stamina - Simply put, everyone has had a game where they threw 500 punches less than their opponent and you both landed a similar amount of punches yet he somehow had stamina left. Missing gets you tired, anyone who's boxed knows this. So does loading up with power shots. Players need to be penalized for missing (not really jabs, but power punches). By doing this it would reward accuracy as well. Also take into account moving around constantly kills your stamina, they patched it once and took this way to far by making anyone who backs up gas out in 3 rounds, but it wasn't a bad idea if done right. Most boxers who stick and move will stop once in a while to retain stamina (see Hagler vs SRL, or Ali vs anyone in his younger days). also take into account the weight class, lighter boxers can stay on their feet longer as can boxers who train to stick and move. Either way it shouldn't be something that any dumbass can pick up and start doing 3 games in.
4) more emphasis on styles once again. FN has always had a great grasp of styles, however FNC is the first game where they dumbed this down. A pressure fighter who mixes it up will often be used to take punishment and flexing his neck muscles to take to the blow or even smothering the blow. An outside boxer isn't used to taking as many hits and often if hit flush reacts quite differenty. For example Joe Frazier or Rocky Marciano, who were almost impossible to KO because they were always expecting to be hit and were ready. Thomas Hearns on the other hand used his height at WW to avoid blows, once he moved up in weight and met other taller fighters he certainly didn't like getting hit nor could he take the hits. Obviously physicality is a big part of this as well, but when I see Marvin Hagler go down from someone like SRL or Winky I just cringe.
Notes:
To make things even more accurate, give block ratings for up top and down stairs separately. Ali for example was quite good at parrying head shots, but often took heavy body shots in order to do this. Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather block to the body quite well and use head-movement more frequently to protect their face (this is an old school style, great for counter punching as your hands aren't tied up with blocking).
Obviously I could go on about the roster but thats more of a money and popularity issue. I'd love to see more old fighters in the game and perhaps a proper Jake Lammotta who they seem to make slow with heavy punches (he had decently fast hands and low power, massive chin and toughness)
That being said, FNC is the best fight game to date. But to improve it once again would require getting rid of as much noob winning as possible.
A good example would be Andrea Bishop and to a slightly lesser extent Robinson. Many people, even ****ty players can win with these fighters because they have such high stat ratings. I remember in FNR4 however, even with a good boxer and better player could still win with a lesser fighter. This is because of a few reasons.
1) punches in FNC now have ratings that determines a fighters better punches (good jab, cross etc) This is a good idea, however it allows people to abuse a certain punch over and over again, a 20 rated cross is a hard punch to dodge unless you have a fighter with amazing head movement or a high block rating. This scenario right here is competition almost entirely creating by the game, and not the player. On top of that when you get cut by this 20 rated punch it starts landing even more frequently. I've been playing since KO kings 99 and can tell you this is not a fair game play characteristic at all. MY ADVICE: keep the punch ratings but change up the punch blue print. A jab should always be the easiest punch to land, it should also aid in landing other punches (if you jab first and throw a punch quick enough after, the jab blinds the person for a split second) This makes the player work to land his jab in order to land other blows. Only a certain few boxers have worked well with lead straights, and they set them up with a lot of feints before hand, they also were only effective doing this against slower fighters.
2) simplified blocking system. Blocking now has a rating system that determines how good of a defense a boxer has with his hands. N00B Idea. MY ADVICE Having ratings on defense are good and having an active blocking system is great - keep it, but bring back up and down boxing. A player shouldn't be able to use Whitaker and literally hold block down and stand in one place while you can't hit him with anything. This isn't skill nor fun competition. Split it up for diversification. Give a boxer like Whitaker for example, good ratings in all the departments for the defense, but it is up to the player in order to use them effectively (movement, head-movement, blocking with the new system) By the changing the blocking system back to an up down system (only with more probability now with an active system running as well) will allow players to bring an opponents hands down with body shots and give more room for feints and set up punches.
3). Stamina - Simply put, everyone has had a game where they threw 500 punches less than their opponent and you both landed a similar amount of punches yet he somehow had stamina left. Missing gets you tired, anyone who's boxed knows this. So does loading up with power shots. Players need to be penalized for missing (not really jabs, but power punches). By doing this it would reward accuracy as well. Also take into account moving around constantly kills your stamina, they patched it once and took this way to far by making anyone who backs up gas out in 3 rounds, but it wasn't a bad idea if done right. Most boxers who stick and move will stop once in a while to retain stamina (see Hagler vs SRL, or Ali vs anyone in his younger days). also take into account the weight class, lighter boxers can stay on their feet longer as can boxers who train to stick and move. Either way it shouldn't be something that any dumbass can pick up and start doing 3 games in.
4) more emphasis on styles once again. FN has always had a great grasp of styles, however FNC is the first game where they dumbed this down. A pressure fighter who mixes it up will often be used to take punishment and flexing his neck muscles to take to the blow or even smothering the blow. An outside boxer isn't used to taking as many hits and often if hit flush reacts quite differenty. For example Joe Frazier or Rocky Marciano, who were almost impossible to KO because they were always expecting to be hit and were ready. Thomas Hearns on the other hand used his height at WW to avoid blows, once he moved up in weight and met other taller fighters he certainly didn't like getting hit nor could he take the hits. Obviously physicality is a big part of this as well, but when I see Marvin Hagler go down from someone like SRL or Winky I just cringe.
Notes:
To make things even more accurate, give block ratings for up top and down stairs separately. Ali for example was quite good at parrying head shots, but often took heavy body shots in order to do this. Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather block to the body quite well and use head-movement more frequently to protect their face (this is an old school style, great for counter punching as your hands aren't tied up with blocking).
Obviously I could go on about the roster but thats more of a money and popularity issue. I'd love to see more old fighters in the game and perhaps a proper Jake Lammotta who they seem to make slow with heavy punches (he had decently fast hands and low power, massive chin and toughness)
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