1) Is doa not considered a tournament fighter because of how unbalanced it is? Not really. I think personally, the people prefer street fighter, tekken, injustice and so on is one of the big reasons. Idk about the past DOA's but there's no "World tour" or "Cup" or "Pro Series" that keeps me off my seat for a tourney. I think DOA's biggest tourney's NEC but anyone can register for it. Fan service is 50-50. It hurts the reputation only because people look at female's fighting in bikini's or whatever costume and they look at it in a negative fashion, but in most media industries: sex sells.
SF & Tekken are preferred because they're more straightforward and lack a stigma that turn off other FGC players (I've excluded persons that avoid FG's in general due to how intimidating they can seem). Injustice has that "superhero" appeal to it like Marvel vs. Capcom, and appeals to the typical MK/NRS/anti-Japanese fighting game crowd anyway.
DOA5LR has the Battle Royal circuit going on, which is technically in its 3rd year. NEC is the finale of the tournament circuit, which included the TFC event you attended this year.
If you see the dumb customizations that some people use in Tekken 7 or VF5FS, I really don't think DOA5LR's "fan service" deters people from playing DOA as much as people think. Most costumes used in tournaments aren't really scandalous in comparison. It's the ability to hold in stun coupled with how complicated DOA5LR is to play that turns people off. The atrocious netcode doesn't help matters also unfortunately.
Sadly DOA's reputation heading into DOA5 hurt its initial momentum too, regardless of how good the game would turn out.
slow character big damage
fast character small damage
What does that make GenFu?
