Free Step Dodge

Like open stance/closed stance?

Oh, not at all. I hate all that nonsense, myself.

Oh yeah, it is quite absurd.

Requires you to pay too much damn attention to your character's footing.

I play Jann Lee bro i feel your pain lol, and when looking for unholdables? ugh they're a annoying as hell.

Akira's 214P+K SS CH into 666P is a fine example of this. I mean really, if you SS and Akira catches you with one of his very few tracking and it happens to be on open stance, he should be rewarded for it regardless of stance because the opponent tried to SS and expected a non-tracking move.

If the case was because the distance is too far between you and the opponent, then yeah it's quite alright..but if it's up close, he should be granted guaranteed damage regardless of stance because the opponent overthinked himself into constantly SS against Akira but the player using Akira knew it was coming and provided payback to the opponent for Side Stepping too much.

If it's guaranteed on both stances in VF, it might as well be guaranteed on either open or closed here.

I wish stance dependent didn't exist on DOA.

You have to be paying too much attention, like with Lee's 4H+K, if you're not in closed stance you don't get the limbo stun, not to mention some of his setups can be SEd in open stance while they cannot be in closed stance.