3-Point Hold v. 4-Point Hold

[Rikuto]

izuna holds were always crazy damaging ..then again you need to consider that its now an advanced hold .. (although i do think the damage on it could use a lil tone down on those particular holds for hayabusa .. but then again its hayabusa ... ) .. plus the fact that he got you in counter timing ... it wold have been worse on high counter ...

have you tried hayates izuna like combo throw on counter? or even high counter since that would be more likely .. into a wall ? and then go for a follow up ? see situations like that are alot more common in doa5 because of the narrower stages ...

i still dont find this a major issue ...

heres a fix ...
during stun ...
- add recovery to holds
- eliminate counter/high counter possibility and just give the regular hold damage ...

Hayates Naraku is the throw you are talking about, and that is also the one I am speaking of. Hayabusa's counter did more damage. Just about half lifebar, in fact, which is ridiculous considering they INCREASED how much life every character has on normal.

Frankly it doesn't matter much if they are advanced holds or not... Even if I can call someone out on it 50% of the time, their counter option does more damage than my throw punishment of it.

If those holds had like 4-6 frame active windows I could maybe see the argument for a counter that does half lifebar without environmental assistance. Currently however, thats just stupid. It is neither hard nor rare to randomly counter a punch from neutral. Especially against someone like Hayate.

What, am I gonna run in and just kick him to death? I've gota punch sometime. That's where all my stuns are.

 

[EMPEROR_COW]

But you've made it clear that you LIKE the guessing. So... yeah.

Honestly, even if holds inflict no damage at all, if you can still hold out of the stun, the game will have a hard time having a decent competitive life.
- Player 1 hits Player 2, putting them in a stun.
- Player 1 goes for a launch or attempts to extend the stun.
- Player 2 successfully holds. No damage is done, but positions are now reset (or we'll even say P1 has adv).
- Player 1 tries again, and connects with another attack, causing a stun.
- Player 1 goes for a launch or attempts to extend the stun.
- Player 2 successfully holds. No damage is done, but positions are now reset (or we'll even say P1 has adv).

See how this is looking? Granted, it wouldn't be like this every time, because people will guess wrong and the attacking player will get a launch. But it will happen enough to where games will take forever, and once again, the offensive player is forced to guess.

well no i dont see it because unless you repeat the same senario twice .. then yes it will happen twice ...
every character has multiple holds ... some high some mid and all with different timings ...

if the person getting hit got to read you properly twice in a row .. well props to him since you were predictable ... or yes he got LUCKY .. and yes this is a factor ...

you on the other hand could have delayed the launch , delayed the string inputs ,done a different launch.. or even baited out the 2nd hold attempt and smacked him with a "high counter" throw since you saw his pattern ... or even went for a trip stun .. or extended the ground stun prior to launch ... theres so many options compared to his 1 option which is hold (+slow escaping arguably) .. and yes although LUCK is a factor which you guys seem to have a problem with .. it is also about reading your opponent ... no two players do the same patterns .. and thats where it gets interesting ...

 

[Rikuto]

well no i dont see it because unless you repeat the same senario twice .. then yes it will happen twice ...
every character has multiple holds ... some high some mid and all with different timings ...

if the person getting hit got to read you properly twice in a row .. well props to him since you were predictable ... or yes he got LUCKY .. and yes this is a factor ...

you on the other hand could have delayed the launch , delayed the string inputs ,done a different launch.. or even baited out the 2nd hold attempt and smacked him with a "high counter" throw since you saw his pattern ... or even went for a trip stun .. or extended the ground stun prior to launch ... theres so many options compared to his 1 option which is hold (+slow escaping arguably) .. and yes although LUCK is a factor which you guys seem to have a problem with .. it is also about reading your opponent ... no two players do the same patterns .. and thats where it gets interesting ...

It's a 50/50. There is no way to predict what your opponent will do in this situation unless he is only using one of his two escape options.. You're giving the game false depth.

 

[Jefffcore]

It's the same guessing game over and over again though. I like guessing to a degree, too, but there's a point where it just gets ridiculous. DOA4 is that point.

Stun - is he gonna hold or isn't he gonna hold
If they're a good player they might know you know they're gonna hold, then they launch you if you throw, or hold low. Or they just don't know what they're doing and hold all over the place and you have to guess where they're gonna hold.... Which is the most frustrating thing you'll ever have to do.

Edit:

EVERRRR

 

[EMPEROR_COW]

It's a 50/50. There is no way to predict what your opponent will do in this situation unless he is only using one of his two escape options.. You're giving the game false depth.

acctually its not ...
its 33/66 .. if you only consider the hits ... high mid or low ..
factor in the possibility of not hitting and baiting the hold for a throw and you skew it more to your favor
factor in the possibility of input delay and thats another factor in your favor

its not 50/50.. it just isnt that simple

and i keep saying this ...
the environment gives you garanteed unholdable damage after contact ... (apart from the true 50/50 being the cliffhanger)
and after air juggle its garanteed as well (but thats a given)

 

[Rikuto]

It's the same guessing game over and over again though. I like guessing to a degree, too, but there's a point where it just gets ridiculous. DOA4 is that point.

Stun - is he gonna hold or isn't he gonna hold
If they're a good player they might know you know they're gonna hold, then they launch you if you throw, or hold low. Or they just don't know what they're doing and hold all over the place and you have to guess where they're gonna hold.... Which is the most frustrating thing you'll ever have to do.

acctually its not ...
its 33/66 .. if you only consider the hits ... high mid or low ..
factor in the possibility of not hitting and baiting the hold for a throw and you skew it more to your favor
factor in the possibility of input delay and thats another factor in your favor

its not 50/50.. it just isnt that simple

and i keep saying this ...
the environment gives you garanteed unholdable damage after contact ... (apart from the true 50/50 being the cliffhanger)
and after air juggle its garanteed as well (but thats a given)

Whoa, mystical japanese super yomi fun time.

You boys are thinking too hard about this. Just break stuff down to probability and you'll understand how futile all of this prediction nonsense really is.

Just pick randomly between two options, seriously. Either counter a mid or counter low. If you counter low, for example, you might get punished with a low throw in the worst case scenario, but it wont be a high-counter izuna drop and you effectively avoid high and low strikes.

Counter mid and you might reflect some damage back.

Those are the only two options you need defensively.

From the attackers standpoint, you are best off alternating between mid strikes and standing throws.

Why? If he counters high or low, your mids keep hitting him. Since you're striking only mid, that means he HAS to counter mid, and that also bottlenecks your only other option for punishing it -- the standing throw. Doing anything else serves pretty much no purpose, because using a high to launch may indeed get around the mid hold but it wont do as much damage in juggle as the throw will, so you're effectively playing against your own condition tactics by doing this.

So you just bank everything on the 50/50.

IN CONCLUSION.

Defending? Hold mid or hold low.

Attacking? Strike mid or standing throw.

This works for every single character right now . If you're doing anything else, you are basically just tricking yourself into thinking your odds have increased. They haven't. Everything falls down to a 50/50 regardless of what you do, because the two options you have will cover literally every single response.

 

[Jefffcore]

Lol But you still have to guess the same, whichever way you spin it. You still have to know if they're gonna hold the mid or if they know you're gonna go for the throw. And if we're talking about 4, if they can crush your mids.

 

[Awesmic]

It's the same guessing game over and over again though. I like guessing to a degree, too, but there's a point where it just gets ridiculous. DOA4 is that point.

Stun - is he gonna hold or isn't he gonna hold
If they're a good player they might know you know they're gonna hold, then they launch you if you throw, or hold low. Or they just don't know what they're doing and hold all over the place and you have to guess where they're gonna hold.... Which is the most frustrating thing you'll ever have to do.

Edit:

EVERRRR

You call that the most frustrating thing you'll ever have to do?

I dunno about you, but I play a character with the lowest possible damage output, and I was never truly frustrated, much less frustrated to the point where I'd claim something to that extreme. I was motivated to up my yomi, if anything. I know this is DOA4 we're talkin' about and we're aiming for a better game than that, but come on now, be reasonable. You play a motorcycle, for cryin' out loud.

Compared to Trials, Ikaruga, and the Bullet Hell series of Touhou Project, this is nothing. But that's just me. I've been so used to being calm and a good sport in the heat of a game that it probably bothers me less than most people.

 

[Rikuto]

Lol But you still have to guess the same, whichever way you spin it. You still have to know if they're gonna hold the mid or if they know you're gonna go for the throw. And if we're talking about 4, if they can crush your mids. Getting right down to it, in 4 I have 2 or 3 moves with each character that I know work well against the opposite and I throw those out till they do something about it. Then I throw the other one or just throw them. Defence is just SE and hold if possible, yada, yada.

And because there is no way to "know", it becomes the "guess". Yes, absolutely correct.

So throw logic out the window, and just use one of two options. Of those two options, make sure both of them hurt like hell when you pick your character.

Then you proceed to win DOA pretty much automatically by law of probability.

I read a math book once. Then I went on to be a good DOA player who pretty much just destroyed most of the competition by just playing the odds directly instead of attempting to play the "game" as it was designed.

 

[Jefffcore]

I understand, I'd see that working with the players online or just the random guy, but against good players I can see sticking to just a couple things making it more difficult. At some point you'd have to go out side the box. Naturally you could just do the same thing over and over and train them into thinking you're gonna keep doing it and then not, but some players catch that.

 

[Rikuto]

I understand, I'd see that working with the players online or just the random guy, but against good players I can see sticking to just a couple things making it more difficult. At some point you'd have to go out side the box. Naturally you could just do the same thing over and over and train them into thinking you're gonna keep doing it and then not, but some players catch that.

Nope. This is literally how everyone was playing the game by the end of CGS season 2. All of the top players. All of them.

And everyone learned Genfu specifically so they could do this because it was such a major threat, because he had the best single strike reward ratio in the game, as well as good throw punishment, ranged mixup, and ridiculous high/mid crushes.

Didn't you think it was odd that Genfu is considered top tier, but basically all of his stuff is mid? That is exactly why.


Mr. Wah and I discussed this a long time ago. The thought process is to boil the game down to two options, then control those options through how effective they are compared to your opponents.

It's sad to think that the game is really this shallow at end game, but it is. That is why it is absolutely necessary to dispel these false ideas of DOA's "depth" and get a stronger public push for a better system.

 

[Blam]

For the record, I wasn't trying to be an asshole to you, completely. I honestly did not pick up on some of your initial post. To me it seemed to be jumbled thoughts, a lot of it had to do with your wording on things. After this post I understand you better, thanks for your clarity. I agree with you on the stricter timing for holds by reducing the active frames of them and making them weaker.

Moves that will go through holds, I get that idea, that has been mentioned for a long time now. Moves like that don't sound bad at all. However, when you suggested "more stuns from different moves" that gave the same effect of the unholdable move(s) after you being hit by them, to me it made the unholdable move(s) redundant. When you rephrased the idea, now, it makes sense.

The meter thing is where I was more-so being an asshole to you. I figured you meant adding a meter to the holds, as they are now that is very understandable. Although that is not the route I would go with dealing with them, just take them out of stuns.

The parry comment was answered before you got to it, I understand you. Still, do you think in the end that your parry idea would be just as abusive as the hold? You get a parry and yeah you said you can mess up your attack but with better players "messing up" won't happen much. So now you'd have parry, (launch?) BnB combos, which will send players flying all over the place for environment control, pretty much all the time. Or do you have a way with your idea to avoid that? If this is just a rough idea that you threw out, ok, I dig that.

All in all, I am just picking your brain. After your post I see you know exactly what you mean, and I respect that. Please don't take that in a condescending tone, some people here tend to do that with comments. Just casual conversation, nice to meet you, Blam.



Some of the info wasn't all that clear to me, grap3.

Don't worry, you didn't seem like an asshole to me, this is mostly just stuff I came up with while thinking, since I like to come up with all sorts of ideas and mechanics for games. It's not always fleshed out or viable, more like stuff I toss out there that may be good.

I admit as far as parry goes, I'm not sure how to alleviate that one. Maybe make the window of opportunity after a successful parry very short? I admit, yeah this was a rough idea I threw out there. You didn't seem condescending to me, and it's nice to meet you too.

Going by what Rikuto said it makes me think maybe this game just wasn't even designed properly around a system involving a counter/combo breaker. I admit I can't think of any other game where stuff like that actually nets you more damage than the person attacking, I always saw features like that as something to temporarily get someone off your back if even for a moment, not "I guessed right now I took half his life" type nonsense. I love the idea of a fighter where people can counter and break combos sometimes, but this game seems to do it in a really odd way I admit.

 

[Black Dragon]

Holds-in-stun should only parry an attack and bring both players to 0.

 

[Allan Paris]

Going by what Rikuto said it makes me think maybe this game just wasn't even designed properly around a system involving a counter/combo breaker. I admit I can't think of any other game where stuff like that actually nets you more damage than the person attacking, I always saw features like that as something to temporarily get someone off your back if even for a moment, not "I guessed right now I took half his life" type nonsense. I love the idea of a fighter where people can counter and break combos sometimes, but this game seems to do it in a really odd way I admit.

DOA4 is when the game took a hard left, DOAD was a little better but that's on a handheld so I don't count it. I don't care how good it was because only a select few played it. DOA5 is trying to get back on the right path. There are things in DOA5 that are from DOA4 that made that game terrible for competitive play. Hopefully TN removes those issues. The game is fine or it was fine before DOA4.

Holds-in-stun should only parry an attack and bring both players to 0.

I can't buy this one, boss. The attacker needs to be at a slight advantage. That neutral tip is not a good look for guessing right out of the stun.

 

[Matt Ponton]

What, am I gonna run in and just kick him to death? I've gota punch sometime. That's where all my stuns are.

You've got no arms left! What are you going to do? Bleed on him?

Mr. Wah and I discussed this a long time ago. The thought process is to boil the game down to two options, then control those options through how effective they are compared to your opponents.

Right. You don't have to really overcomplicate yourself with the options and if an opponent has "learned" yet. Just keep fucking throwing out a mid and mix it up with a standing throw if you feel they're going to hold. It's best if the mid normal hit launches but another option you have is a long mid delayable string. I can't tell you how easy it is just to do Spartan's string, since it nearly works on most characters once she's in and you can delay it long enough to fish out a hold and restun them in the process. Then you just do when you see the mid hold.

The only thing in the opponent's mind is "He's going to do mid punch or throw". Throwing in another option just overcomplicates things since the mid punch string above will cover anyone who holds mid kick, high, low, or throws; the throw covers anyone who holds mid punch, offensive holds, and slow escapes.

 

[DrDogg]

i still dont find this a major issue ...

heres a fix ...
during stun ...
- add recovery to holds
- eliminate counter/high counter possibility and just give the regular hold damage ...

You don't see it as a major issue because you LIKE the guessing. >_>

No matter how you adjust holds, if you can do them in stun, with any kind of frequency, they will limit the competitive potential of the game. Period.

 

[EMPEROR_COW]

You don't see it as a major issue because you LIKE the guessing. >_>

No matter how you adjust holds, if you can do them in stun, with any kind of frequency, they will limit the competitive potential of the game. Period.

i would still rather have them in stun than turn the game into brain dead auto pilot combos .. creating massive tier gaps and game breaking expoits ..

i still see a room for competitivity even with mid stun holds ..
every game can be competitive .. that particular thing is what makes DOA what it is .. stripping the game of that is basicly stripping it from being DOA .. i dont want it to play like every other half assed fighter out there ..

and even with the guessing that you guys seem to hate so much .. there IS a high level of skill involved and a good player can infact exploit a poor player in this game just like every other game

if u see a hold spammer you throw more
if you see someone that only holds mids .. you batter him with highs n lows ..
if you see someone that hits relentlesly .. you hold him
if you see someone that doesnt hold at all you can mix the hell out of him ..

holds make the game nice and aggressive and .. yes I like that ... I like that you arent helpless as long as you have your feet on the ground ... i like that if theres 10 seconds left on the timer and your opponent hitconfirms something i like that there is a chance to come back still .. and you dont have to watch yourself die before you die like other games ..

and you guys seem to keep forgetting ..
there are instant launchers ... that if they connect you get a garanteed juggle ... thats equivalent to a hitconfirm in my book
then theres stage effects .. all of which give you garanteed damage from a single correct guess ...
then theres throws that lead to unholdable states ...

if you want to gamble for more damage .. then you gamble being stuffed .. its simple as that .. high risk/ high reward .. low risk/low reward ...

it pisses me off when people say this cant be competitive simply because of that ... atleast everyone has their equal chance ...

when you look at sf4AE .. you had broken ass yun ... and he was way higher up the tier list to the point that he broke the game ... and infact killed alot of the hype that the game worked hard to build ... come ver.2012 where the game is way more balanced and people are still recovering from the damage AE caused ...
look at marvel3 and phoenix ... almost every team in top 8 used to have a phoenix in their arsenal .. yes there are other players that didnt and they shined simply because of that .. but ... lets face it .. u find an exploit and you spam the hell out of it ...

DOA yes had tiers .. and oh god yes it had exploits ... but the hold system is what kept it all at a near balance ... so that even a character thats considered low tier can pretty much put up a fight ...

I like doa simply for the fact that you have to understand the OPPONENT .. rather than his broken ass character .. and I like that you have to keep your mind working with every button you press ... and not just get a stupid jab hit confirm into a 20+ hit auto pilot combo ... (that takes as long as a woman in labour needs to deliver twins)

I understand this argument can go on forever ...

different people simply have different tastes ...
just like you hate holds mid stun ...
some people love it ...

and that wont change ...

but I sure as hell hope they keep them ... and i wouldnt mind the tweaks they had in DOA3.1 cuz that game was gold and it seemed to work perfectly there ...

 

[PhoenixVFIRE]

If we don't get some type of fix on the holds, at least give us some stun animations that can lead into unholdable and un-SEable combos.

 

[Rikuto]

i would still rather have them in stun than turn the game into brain dead auto pilot combos .. creating massive tier gaps and game breaking expoits ..

i still see a room for competitivity even with mid stun holds ..
every game can be competitive .. that particular thing is what makes DOA what it is .. stripping the game of that is basicly stripping it from being DOA .. i dont want it to play like every other half assed fighter out there ..

and even with the guessing that you guys seem to hate so much .. there IS a high level of skill involved and a good player can infact exploit a poor player in this game just like every other game

if u see a hold spammer you throw more
if you see someone that only holds mids .. you batter him with highs n lows ..
if you see someone that hits relentlesly .. you hold him
if you see someone that doesnt hold at all you can mix the hell out of him ..

holds make the game nice and aggressive and .. yes I like that ... I like that you arent helpless as long as you have your feet on the ground ... i like that if theres 10 seconds left on the timer and your opponent hitconfirms something i like that there is a chance to come back still .. and you dont have to watch yourself die before you die like other games ..

and you guys seem to keep forgetting ..
there are instant launchers ... that if they connect you get a garanteed juggle ... thats equivalent to a hitconfirm in my book
then theres stage effects .. all of which give you garanteed damage from a single correct guess ...
then theres throws that lead to unholdable states ...

if you want to gamble for more damage .. then you gamble being stuffed .. its simple as that .. high risk/ high reward .. low risk/low reward ...

it pisses me off when people say this cant be competitive simply because of that ... atleast everyone has their equal chance ...

when you look at sf4AE .. you had broken ass yun ... and he was way higher up the tier list to the point that he broke the game ... and infact killed alot of the hype that the game worked hard to build ... come ver.2012 where the game is way more balanced and people are still recovering from the damage AE caused ...
look at marvel3 and phoenix ... almost every team in top 8 used to have a phoenix in their arsenal .. yes there are other players that didnt and they shined simply because of that .. but ... lets face it .. u find an exploit and you spam the hell out of it ...

DOA yes had tiers .. and oh god yes it had exploits ... but the hold system is what kept it all at a near balance ... so that even a character thats considered low tier can pretty much put up a fight ...

I like doa simply for the fact that you have to understand the OPPONENT .. rather than his broken ass character .. and I like that you have to keep your mind working with every button you press ... and not just get a stupid jab hit confirm into a 20+ hit auto pilot combo ... (that takes as long as a woman in labour needs to deliver twins)

I understand this argument can go on forever ...

different people simply have different tastes ...
just like you hate holds mid stun ...
some people love it ...

and that wont change ...

but I sure as hell hope they keep them ... and i wouldnt mind the tweaks they had in DOA3.1 cuz that game was gold and it seemed to work perfectly there ...

1. You're ignoring the math because it is inconvenient and trying to make the argument about tiers and imbalance, which something you don't really understand in this game as you've never played it at high level.

2. It's still a 50/50 and the majority of the damage will still go to the defender most of the time if a single hit launch is countered. There are a few instances where it won't, but for most matchups it absolutely will.

There is absolutely no reasonable excuse for that.

3. For all the complaining you're doing about MVC and SF, those games are actually possible to play at a competitive level and therefore are. DOA isn't, and therefore isn't. Why attempt to defy reality with words?

 

[Allan Paris]

Why attempt to defy reality with words?

You've already said it and know why.

take away that crutch and suddenly things get really scary for them.

I swear most DOA players don't know anything about how a fighting games work outside of stun. They just assume all of the spacing, baiting, and setting up environmental/frame traps before that is luck.