The only reliable forms of defense in DOA 5 (the ones I listed in my previous post) are blocking,sidestepping, and spacing.Even still every move on offense and even defense is a risk. Blocking just a little too much gets you thrown. Quite a few moves track so so you can get hit out of sidestep. Countering in DOA 5 is a bit more strict and doesn't do as much damage.
It's a fighting game, of course every possibility has an element of risk attached to it. If you are blocking too much and getting thrown for it, that's your issue, not your opponents or the games' mechanics. Again, if some moves didn't track, what would prevent you from SS'ing all day long?
In DOA 5 the need for "guessing" or playing mind games has been minimized because now every move or decision you make now has consequences.
As it should. Otherwise, it's rather mindless just throwing out moves and not having consequences attached to them.
The aggressive offensive player has more options of getting through the defense, than the defensive player has of stopping the offensive player . You have to have a solid offensive set up to keep your opponent on defense. As long as you stop your opponent from applying any offensive pressure you will have the advantage and most likely when the fight.
The defensive player can block, counter/parry/sabaki, sidestep, crush, and space. The offensive player can attack (mid/low mixups) or throw. It seems to me the defensive player has more options. Hell, you can even counter out of stuns to heavily reduce the advantage of the stun, sometimes to the point where they cannot actually continue the stun (I'm looking at you Kokoro Heichu P+K) .
DOA as a series has always been a guess-fest.It was a part of the game play structure that is basically rock paper scissors.
To some degree yes, but in pre-4 times, you did not have to play the stun game to get damage. Initial stun, launch (or maybe another move in between if you wanted to). That's 2-3 guesses the defending player can make to stop the attacking player with a counter before being launched. Now, it takes more hits for the attacker to get to the stun threshold for maximum damage. This is what most people did not like about 4 (apart from the risk of being countered at every turn).
Your execution and game plan always has to be on point. In previous DOA games you could rely on mind games or guess work to win.In DOA 5 the mind games or guess work have been minimized
Your execution and game plan should be on point in any game, if you want to win. DOA5 has just as many mind games as 4 did as it retains the same basic stun system (minus sitdowns). Most people do not like to guess all the time, so having something guaranteed on occasion is refreshing.
DOA 5 is a good game.Its just not the type of DOA game I prefer to play.
And that's totally fine. It's clear you prefer the DOA4 style of gameplay. Nothing wrong with that. That being said, trying to say DOA4 was a better fighter because it had more guessing is asinine.
The issue, like Mailifang said, is mostly psychological: Everyone just mindlessly rushes in trying to do guaranteed damage, no longer afraid of being countered due to the small damage taken from counters (as compared to past games, anyway).
Counters still do a lot of damage in comparison to the majority of attacks. Look at it this way.
At neutral, I do 2P to get a reset. If it hits, I'll get say, 10 damage and +0. Now, if you think I'm going to do a low attack (2P or any other low for that matter) and you counter, you could get anywhere from 40-100 points of damage (depending on the character, advance hold or whatever) and possible some force teching. You might have thought I was going to do a different low, but it worked regardless.
Point is, a counter can easily cause more damage than a simple combo (which runs the risk of being countered a few times) and you don't even really have to guess that correctly (thought I'd do 2K but I do 2P instead).
"They picked this character, so they'll spend the entire match rushing in trying to do this guaranteed damage combo, and i'll either repeatedly counter the beginning of that counter over and over, or i'll slip up and eat it.".
Then you aren't facing decent opponents. Just because I'm in BT as Kokoro, doesn't mean I'm always going to be be going for BT P+K, that's silly.
A lot of the variety is killed, as well, due to there being more guaranteed stuff. Before, people mostly needed to just take the damage opportunities when they came up, otherwise spending the fight...yaknow, fighting. Now though, everyone just tries to beeline straight for all the guaranteed stuff. Again, a combination of both there being more guaranteed damage situations, as well as the lack of fear due to counters being reduced in effectiveness.
If anything, guaranteed stuff added variety. How? It made probably useless moves useful. Take Kasumi's 4F+K. It's like an i22 kick with no tracking. If it gave a holdable stun after, why would you use such a slow, non-tracking move over a faster and/or tracking one? Plus the fear of such a sitdown adds some intensity and variety, forcing you to be on your toes.
It's not like there are i11 mids that cause a sitdown into 80 points of damage. The majority have some sort of limitation to them (slow, linear, both) that without causing a non-holdable sitdown,would have questionable value.
As for your wall question, here's the answer: Because there's no reason they should lose control of their character just for being put against a wall. They should be at a disadvantage, but not lose (almost) complete control. But that comes back to the original point of "People don't want a match, they just want guaranteed damage and easy wins."
Yes they should lose control for being slammed into the wall. They could have a) Free stepped away from the wall b) Blocked correctly or even c) Countered to prevent it. They didn't. As such, the attacker should be rewarded with some damage without the fear of being held.
TL
R; It's clear both of you like the DOA4 style of "You can get out of virtually everything". Again, nothing wrong with liking that and preferring it. However, DOA5 is the better technical fighter.
All fighting games involve guessing. Just DOA4 took it to the extreme which most people don't like. It's fine if you do, but you cannot use that (or saying it's more realistic; come on, its a fighting game where you float in the air with ninjas teleporting lol) as a reason DOA4>5.
