Power Blow

[Allan Paris]

I'm with Allen. It just seemed like you kind of randomly tossed them out. The opponent just looked like they were mashing away. Not exactly high level.

Well, he did say he was playing the cpu in that vid. So that would explain him randomly throwing it out there. When I play against the cpu that's what I do to it when I get bored from beating it. Still doesn't justify it happening when things get real.

Also, I don't really see a PB ever being blocked under the current system. If I see someone charging, I'll either attempt to interrupt with a fast attack that tracks, or I'll wait until it executes and counterhold on reaction.

This is what I'd do as well and probably many others.

I just don't see any practical situation in which I'd be whiffing an attack that would allow you to whiff punish with a 40-frame attack.

Neither do I, but you have those that believe other wise (that most players will let it fly). We'll just have to show them better than we can tell them.

 

[EMPEROR_COW]

ok... after playing the demo for quite a while with some good local friends (and experimenting with the video(s) I'm making ) ...
well it just hit me ...

during stun ... when you attempt a hold ... isn't the recovery on that hold significantly higher?
that means if someone attempts a powerblow ... and you're at those recovery frames ... well .. then you're stuffed ..
it goes down to the timing of the hold and the timing of the PB ofcourse ...
but heres the thing ...
you can sidestep it .. so that plays a huge factor in playing with the defenders head ...
the opponent can choose not to hold and just stand there and block ... by which he might get hit with a guard breaker .. no1 likes those ... (although from certain distances it can be pretty useless)

the other thing was ..
playing a game of chicken ...
when you see a powerblow ... you go for one yourself ...
it all goes down to who lets go first and weather you would be able to sidestep on time ... and go for the punish ..
although this sounds like a crazy thing to do ... i dont see why it wouldnt be viable if you can turn the tides on someone ... ...

then ofcourse theres the whiff punishes with PB ... (obviously )

my only worry is that yes powerblows look all flashy and pretty now ... but if they change them to something faster ... then they might even become spammable .. and that i would hate to see ... (reminds me of zangief's lariat .. lol ... yes i know its unsafe ... im just talking about the ease of input ... )

honestly even at this slow speed they can still be very useful ... i dont mind them tweaking it to be faster by 2 or 3 frames .. but not more ... i would much prefer the core gameplay be the same and not too heavily reliant on powerblows ... yes they look nice once or twice in a match or set of matches .. but seeing them all the time would be quite .. repetitive and annoying so to speak

 

[PhoenixVFIRE]

Maybe the frames are different depending on the character or recently made faster, because in the trailer with Kasumi, she hardly held it at all and went straight into a PB pretty damn fast...

Edit: One more thing, does the damage of the PB go up depending on how long you held it just like charge moves did in DoA4?

 

[Allan Paris]

Edit: One more thing, does the damage of the PB go up depending on how long you held it just like charge moves did in DoA4?

No, The PB damage stays the same no matter how long you charge it.

 

[DoctorForHire]

You just got lucky the counter came out too early.

"Luck isn't involved in 99% of things in life" - SG Xian
As far as fighting games go remove that word from your dictionary and don't make excuses like that.

 

[DrDogg]

On paper and in the demo, PBs are not currently effective at high levels. This may change as the meta-game evolves or as the game system is adjusted in the final build. However, I definitely do not want to see them sped up. Something that does that much damage should not be easy to land.

There's no meter and nothing preventing someone from using a PB anytime they want. If it were easy to land, it would be completely broken and ruin the game. I'm fine the way they are now... used frequently at a casual level, but rarely making contact at high levels.

I wish counterholds were more like this...

"Luck isn't involved in 99% of things in life" - SG Xian
As far as fighting games go remove that word from your dictionary and don't make excuses like that.

...

So you're saying that Manny used his high level DOA skills to force NinjaCW into using a counterhold immediately after a whiffed throw, halfway through the charge animation of his attack? Those are some interesting skills...

Sorry to say that luck plays a role in many high level fighting game matches. I actually find it ridiculous that you would tell me to "remove that word from my dictionary" on a DOA site. Of all the competitive fighting games, DOA is probably the series that relies most on luck.

 

[Rikuto]

"Luck isn't involved in 99% of things in life" - SG Xian
As far as fighting games go remove that word from your dictionary and don't make excuses like that.

Sorry man, but it's true.

You can get a bead on someones bad habits and use that to beat someone consistently, but when both players know whats up, it really does come down to just luck and matchup a lot of the time.

Maybe it won't with DOA 5, but that's definitely been the case so far.

 

[DoctorForHire]

Sorry man, but it's true.

You can get a bead on someones bad habits and use that to beat someone consistently, but when both players know whats up, it really does come down to just luck and matchup a lot of the time.

I don't really consider it "luck" that one guy knows the matchup better and pressed the right buttons first. But thats just me.

So you're saying that Manny used his high level DOA skills to force NinjaCW into using a counterhold immediately after a whiffed throw, halfway through the charge animation of his attack? Those are some interesting skills...

I call that NinjaCW having a case of bad reads and bad execution.

Sorry to say that luck plays a role in many high level fighting game matches.

Thats a pretty ridiculous way to look at competitive matches. If a player knows how to do the business, its not luck. To discredit someone's win or achievement because of luck is just plain salt.

Of all the competitive fighting games, DOA is probably the series that relies most on luck.

When you put it like that I think I would agree.

 

[grap3fruitman]

I don't really consider it "luck" that one guy knows the matchup better and pressed the right buttons first. But thats just me.

It doesn't matter if I press the buttons first, I can always get held in zero frames.

 

[Rikuto]

I don't really consider it "luck" that one guy knows the matchup better and pressed the right buttons first. But thats just me.

Everyone can be countered by everyone in zero frames and do crazy damage that typically outshines the attackers. That kind of ability takes away from a lot of the character individuality and matchup knowledge. Hence why everyone fought the same way in DOA 4 with some very slight variations.

At the end of the day, unless you were genfu, it was strike, stun, and guess between about two hit levels or a throw. The odds were in your favor slightly for a single strike launch, but the odds of failure increased with each stun extension. Let's say you're a godly character with great stuns for highs, mid punches, mid kicks. Fast low stuns can pretty much universally be slow escaped with ease, so we won't count those in this example. If it took 5 hits to reach the stun threshold required for your ideal juggle, and you had 3 valid ways to extend your stuns, you had at least a 33.3% chance per strike of being countered.

Think about that for a minute. Your strikes only do like 10-20 damage each, but they can be countered for 50-80 in stun generally. The odds are actually against you here for reaching maximum threshold as well, simply through probability and repetition. A blind man can be mashing buttons and he has the same odds of stopping you as the best DOA player in the world.

There was no logical or safe choice to make for attacking OR keeping yourself alive, even when you had made every correct read prior to putting your opponent in stun. To make things even better, about 90% of the strings in DOA 4 have a massive window where you can delay inbetween each strike. This means there is no way to tell when your opponents string has been canceled until he is already pretty much back to neutral and the pressure is even again.

If that isn't a guess oriented game, what is?

 

[Berzerk!]

about being held at 0 frames as the catch all counter argument to all other strategy; its not realistic to say that's what's going to happen even in doa4 when you take into account that it takes a lot more than 0 frames for the player themselves to react.
A good mind game and pressure game still works and at high level the guesses are minimized.
Yeah in doa4 the active frames of the counter are too large and the recovery too lenient, but smart attackers still dictate the match.
The important thing is doa5 has already rectified for the most part this issue as defenders are too likely to be punished for holding at the wrong time and just won't try it randomly once they learn.
The point is don't assume player capability matches 1:1 with what's technically possible as its a bit if a false proposition compared to real match situations

 

[Rikuto]

Reaction is flawed though. Reaction only helps with slower moves, and can be thwarted by fakeouts. Guessing has total consistency though. and with counter windows as big as they are, Why react when you can guess?

Odds dictate you have a pretty good chance of winning the stun game at the initial strike as the defender, and better odds as time goes on. Why screw up your mindset with unnecessary baggage? Certainly not how I played.

Sure, reading people works at lower levels, but when you get to the top everyone is either masking their intention or forcing a direct 50/50 with genfu. PL used to say the difference between DOA and Tekken is that in Tekken, you used as few moves as possible. In DOA, you use as many as possible to give you the illusion of randomness.

Everyone has to try to be as random as they possibly can be, or they'll be read like a low level player who doesn't recognize their own bad habits. Thus the game becomes nothing but probability.

The important thing is doa5 has already rectified for the most part this issue as defenders are too likely to be punished for holding at the wrong time and just won't try it randomly once they learn.

Unless you're Busa. Big surprise, right?

 

[grap3fruitman]

-snip-

This is one of the best and most informative posts I've ever seen.

 

[Rikuto]

A good mind game and pressure game still works and at high level the guesses are minimized.

Just want to reiterate, you've got it backwards. Mechanically there is nothing you can do to minimize guessing in DOA 4 besides going for single strike launches, and that in turn streamlines your guess into a 50/50. At high level the most guessing is taking place. At lower levels the guessing is minimized because low level opponents do the same thing over and over again.

 

[Awesmic]

The important thing is doa5 has already rectified for the most part this issue as defenders are too likely to be punished for holding at the wrong time and just won't try it randomly once they learn.

Unless you're Busa. Big surprise, right?

, , and : Very surprised.