It's such a small thing, and it probably won't matter in the long run, but I'm very happy that they did it.
I love how the update notes try to be inconspicuous. What they really want to put: we removed Jones from the game.
In between* waiting for my Hori Fighting Commander in order to play SFV and Skullgirls, and taking issue with mobile Blazblue's interplay between progression and free-to-play elements (and that it actually isn't an in-depth fighter, SF Volt-style), I got it into my head to redownload UFC. * Really, it's enough that in a life of rapidly declining interest and times for games, fighting games is one of the few genres that still always seem fresh and masochistically alluring to me. And I wanted to pipe up and say that while the cash prices for fighters are the absolutely, most absurdly, offensively, aggravatingly horrendously large-scale-corporate-defecation-in-our-faces-style expensive I have to this day seen in any freemium game in the history of everything, much about this game is done right. The fighting mechanics go just a bit beyond CoC and Injustice in sophistication, depth and width. There are more moves, more defensive options, more strategic choice, more variety. Just like in BlazBlue. And they demands and reward skill. But unlike BB, there are no timers on regular play and no ads. And all kinds of fighters can drop from reward boxes which can be farmed indefinitely. And most importantly, there are no absolute paywalls, and even the soft ones are often easy to overcome. The fights mentioned in this thread as paywalls (20 and 22) didn't even register as difficult for (the non-IAP-invested) me. I don't think I'm especially adept at fighting games, regardless of my attachment to them. But if I am and that helped me get past these encounters, it speaks even more to the balance of the game and quality of it's fighting mechanics. It's starting to seem like a basic fact of modern privileged western life that the interplay between free-to-play mechanics and stats-based progression** will always eventually rob any freemium title of its sense of balance. I'm negatively positive this will eventually be the case with UFC. And fights still grow tedious after 15+ minutes or prolonged playtime. This restricted gaming attention span of mine is surely a blessing. But until then, I'm having more fun than with any other swipe-a-fight. And the fun seems to last long. There are very few IAP for advantage and progression-based freemium titles that offers me that. ** I.e., when stat progression and elevating difficulty drive IAP sales, there is little room or incentive to offer balanced, skill-focused opposition. Isn't it a innovative design principle not to have content and presentation dictate the long-term value of a title? For me, SFIV Volt, Kinetic Damage and even Soul Calibur and SFxT dragon punches even UFC on the nose thanks to almost incomparably more complex and sophisticated fighting mechanics. But among the recent offerings, among the free-to-play titles, and among the Injustice-a-likes, it grandslams and throws itself about with authority. That's still quite a few categories to dominate
