u/Dramatic-Drama-7827

What’s good:

1. Fighter models look great imo. Dricus seems a bit too small and too blonde, but in terms of realism, these are very solid. Alex, Khamzat, Rob, MVP, and the Max and Volk on the main menu look amazing. Also, everyone so far has unique body types. Very excited to see the rest of the roster 
2. Actual striking physics do feel more realistic. Clean shots do more damage, head movement is less cheesy, body and leg work actually feels rewarding, fighters actually react to shots, and I’ve gotten a few genuine flash KOs, which was flat out impossible in 5. Overall it feels less “on rails”, if that makes sense
3. Animations. All 5 fighters in the beta have unique strikes, I’ve already seen plenty of new rocked and knockdown animations, and there seems to be a whole new library of animations for blocking strikes on the guard and getting hit. People worried about “no new animations” can be at peace
4. KOs (mostly) are far less chaotic than in 5. Uppercuts actually make ur opponent slump and fall forwards instead of flying back across the cage, for example
5. A few new grappling positions, like butterfly guard and some transitions along the cage, but nothing to write home about
6. More offline game modes/content. Obviously, these aren’t available yet and could still turn out to be utter dogshit like the past two career modes, but I mostly play offline, so any added stuff is a win for me
7. I have yet to encounter a doctor stoppage
8. Purple shorts

What’s bad:

1. Of course flow state is #1. I’m actually not even that mad at the mechanic, irl fighters do rly turn it up and get an adrenaline surge when their opponent is hurt. But HOOOLY people are not lying when they say this shit looks horrible. Actual Tekken/Mortal Kombat bullshit that I rly rly rly hope you can at least disable the visuals for. If this mechanic stays, it needs to give a huge stamina debuff after, and the screen effects have gotta go period. Maybe make it its own separate game mode idek
2. Also, the overall in-fight visuals are pretty bad. The lighting looks like a concert, weird blue filter and the default camera angle is equally weird
3. Stamina is a bit concerning, definitely needs a nerf and is the main reason the game feels a bit too arcadey right now (other than flow state)
4. Some bad animations remained, like the whole “sat down against the cage” sequence, and some knockdowns do still look very goofy, though not nearly as bad as in 4 or 5
5. Grappling. The whole system still needs a rework and is far too one dimensional. Still not nearly enough positions or transitions, haven’t seen any new submissions, and the mini game aspect is the same. Still can’t throw 12-6’s or even multiple elbows
6. Just like in 5, they need to tone down the cut system. Every fight that goes past the first round still looks like a slasher movie
7. Replay system is the exact same and still sucks ass
8. Some people reporting glitches, I put this in the “bad” category but I gotta remind yall it’s a beta, and the document EA sent us quite literally said to expect bugs and crashes. Hopefully these are ironed out by release

Overall I’m optimistic. It’s unfortunately still not the ideal MMA game that we all want, and it seems like we’ll still have to deal with EA’s wacky bullshit. Every other aspect of the game not yet shown might turn out to be a steaming pile of ass. But to say what we’ve seen so far is not an improvement from UFC 5 feels dishonest to me. People on here saying it looks like a mobile game, saying the animations got worse, that all feels dramatic. Striking feels fun and finally unique to each fighter, models look incredible, and the offline stuff feels promising. It’s definitely not perfect but there’s a lot to be excited about