Free Step Dodge

It was a gamble on TN's part, they were trying to appeal to new players by streamlining things. You have to remember that DOA5 or DOA5LR weren't exactly super popular games or anything, especially compared to something like Tekken 7. And to be quite frank, DOA5LR's mechanics can be pretty jank also.

TN "doesn't listen" to the DOA community because people complain too often and they don't bring in that much $$$ for them. How many people came out to tournaments for DOA5? DOA5LR? DOA6?

Yeah basically the audience isn't there. It's heavily niche, you'd have to be an enthusiast to appreciate it.

DOA unfortunately does not have Smash or Tekken level of a player base. The only way we'd even have a bump up to that level of interest is if it's the only 3D fighter on the market (which ain't happening), or if the other 3D fighters fuck up that heavily for DOA's moment to shine.

End of the day, just keep playing DOA6 or DOA5. Always play what makes you happy, I don't have a legitimate reason to play DOA6 nor DOA5 so I went to go play other games exactly as I did and having a blast so props to DOA6 and DOA5 players. You have others like Human013 who complains all day and still hasn't moved on to play other games so just ignore those. DOA's community is still there and still playing.

Part of the point was if comparing DOA6 to DOA5LR was awkward, why not make comparison between DOA5 Vanilla & DOA6? DOA5 Vanilla Costume Selection is a start (which later updates make it definitive version of DOA), what makes DOA5 Vanilla costume selection best is Tina, Christie, & Lisa Swimsuits (from DOAX2) 1 set unlockable Master Difficulty/Playing Rank Matches & 2 set as DLC with different color pallet.

Man I still have mild PTSD from some of the balance bullshit in vanilla DOA5. Ground game was just wack, way too much focus on pressure (Helena BKO 6P etc) which I don't mind as a concept, but DOA5 crossed the line. Also just the damage in general (Alpha doing 70% (?) with one throw etc). You'd lose before you could adapt sometimes. It didn't promote learning, it promoted boring, repetitive play.

The main reason I liked U and LR so much was because my main issues were fixed. DOA5 still looks beautiful though, which is hard for a game with its artstyle. Usually a game that aims to make their characters that beautiful will look outdated in a couple of years when there's better technology. DOA5 avoided that problem. It's usually safer to go for an artstyle that you know is gonna age well.

That's actually a reasonable gripe with DOA5 vanilla. Part of this is the health pool and the hit status damage multiplier. Because of how DOA is, 90% of the time matches result in CH city, but with the addition that every single character had messed up shenanigans where it becomes one sided matches in DOA5 vanilla.

Vanilla was fun for people who enjoy winning at the character select screen. You can really tell who those people in the community are.

DOA6 isn’t that bad, but it’s also not good. 6 vanilla is definitely better than 5 vanilla. Whereas DOA5 was broken at times, DOA6 vanilla is just too easy and rewarding for new players.

DOA6 is easier than DOA5, yeah, though I don't think I'd refer to it as "too easy and rewarding". Yeah its easier for newer players than DOA5 was, but those newer players are still going to get curb-stomped by players with a lot more experience. A lot of my issue with DOA6 revolves around the whole implementation of the "S" button and meter. I understand the intention, but not a fan of the execution.

The difficulty is what made it interesting for me at least. I love that feeling of having a whole new thing to exlore and dive into for months, as dumb as that sounds. I play Smash casually with some friends sometimes but I just can't get myself to dive into and grind a game like that.

As a sidenote I remember a ton of complaints early on in the DOA5 cycle about the lack of costumes, which never bothered me much but I guess it's a legitimate criticism if the previous games had more options.

DOA5 might’ve had a lack of costumes, but at least the costumes the game did have were different from each other. DOA6 only had 2-5 costumes in a different colour and the rest was DLC. Some of which were also recolours of costumes that already were in game.

Hmm... Not necessarily. A lot of DOA5 costumes were recolours too. One thing I will give credit is that the male characters commonly got 3 or 4 costumes, whereas they got 2 unique costumes in DOA6 + 4 recolours (which is honestly better than most FG's TBH). The female characters generally got 5 costumes + 10 recolours which is actually really good (some recolours are solid also).

In a lot of FG's, especially 2D fighters, the extra "costumes" are just recolours/reskins. In SamSho for instance there's just 1 costume + 3 recolours for each character.

A lot of those fighting games (mainly 2D) used sprites which all the costumes you get are recolors/reskins, chances of seeing different outfits of same character would've required more work probably would've not been worth it (during 90s) when developing games and getting released. Which 3D polygons makes it easy to create different types of outfits.

SamSho 2019 is not a "sprites" game. Neither is something like Killer Instinct. On average DOA's costumes are miles better than those of other fighting games.

I have to agree but also disagree. For DOA standards, it got worse. I’d rather have 4 costumes that are different, than 2 costumes with 3 recolours. But for FG standards it’s definitely more than what others are providing.

Although I have to say, that Tekken and SC always had a customisation mode to replace the lack of base costumes. MK11 also stepped it up with the amount of costumes characters have and their customisation.