DrDogg: you forgot my feedback
Look, it is a bit weird to be seeking feedback based on an old demo but it's worth the exercise as TN will know what to use or ignore based on revisions they've already made. But what mechanism for feedback is there? They haven't made this at all clear.
I wanted to throw back into he thread and throw some in principle support behind Raansu's very reasonable comments and I think it was shouted down without fairly adjusting against old assumptions.
It's a bit extreme to say you HAVE to have DOA confirm to the expectations of the FGC. Those assumptions are built on game designed with largely the same sets of fundamentals but there really ARE things games like VF and DOA do differently and right for THEM which certain minds in the fgc raised on other games would not accept.
Just having a block button, for example is radical and "wrong" to a lot of people. For the genre to evolve and for games on the fringe of the so called fgc mainstream I challenge the status quo with a different approach, you do have to allow them to work on slightly different assumptions. So long as the game turns out balanced playable accessible and ULTIMATELY solid and sensible, not in fgc theory land but in practice, it will be ok.
Things like blows beating throws is a smart and logical, feature of Doa's gameplay is heresy or unhear of just because other games don't do it. But fuck it, Doa does it and it's BETTER. (of course we need throw escapes but that's not the point)
So in the argument about stun system and holds, we do not have to hold our approval to random for One solution that we think of; eg not holding out of criticals.
I think on the basis of info we have to work with, it's an elegant systemic solution. But let's not put the blinkers on and say that's the only solution. TN can work the system in any number of ways to give the result we want without using the sole method we advocate. They may be reworking the stun system (lack of criticals could be a good thing). They could be adding unholdable moves or reducing active frames, damage and increasing recovery.
We don't have hard data on a lot of these subtle but key elements.
So I'm not going to be praying. I'll be looking for the evidence and building on that. For now it's best to admit we still don't know a lot of key information to draw definitive solutions. And it would be nice to appreciate Doa does some things differently, and well.
Side note on Akira, my main vf sparring partner is an Akira expert and was very appreciative of what he saw in Doa, saying they had his moves right and it was a very respectful representation. Beyond that, we don't know how his play will feel. It just looks right so far.