...This is a hunch, but I think from the very beginning of DOA6, Koei Tecmo didn't have enough budget to fund DOA6 and Yohei Shimbori said "I love the DOA community. I'll sacrifice some of my money to make Dead or Alive 6"
And the lack of the big time Koei Tecmo money and the deadline of the games release is what caused the game to be lacking.
I'm just going to point out my opinions on what a hot mess I think DOA6 is at this point.
Your first biggest problem is that you're always aiming to please the beginners.
I too have a soft spot for beginners and I'd like to help new people out, and I enjoy when new players learn. But oversaturating it with beginner quality content is only weakening the game.
With all due respect, I love your game, but you're killing it. Your methods to please both competitive and beginner crowds is ALL WRONG.
Your market plan to promise new characters "Only If" players buy new content is a wrong marketing strategy. I don't know what you call it in Japan, but in North America we call that blackmail, and you're not encouraging or shining any light to new players.
You want them to buy your content, you're going to have to stop listening to anyone who talks about the sexuality or the simplicity of the game, and only focus on the people who have a critical response to the mechanics.
Literally every competitive player has listed something great to improve the games quality and you've repeated turned your head and said "Nope. It takes away from the simplicity for beginners."
In order to create a big crowd of supporters who would kill to play your game, and make big sales like the fans of Tekken and Street Fighter, you need to make the game:
ALL ABOUT THE ATTACK LISTS, AND CHARACTERS!
That is the FIRST PRIORITY!!!
This is a crucial time...And Team Ninja, you need to hire more designers in Team Ninja's character/movelist design department, and that department has to forefront of the Dead or Alive game. That department has to be everything, and nothing should be more important than that department. Period.
This version of DOA is already easy, especially with the limited sidesteps.
Now you need to add a bunch of new attacks to each character, and continuously add new characters. At least 10 new moves need to be added to all the characters. There has to be multiple layers of playstyles for each character. The more diversity you create for character playstyles, the more of a fanbase you'll create for those characters.
Think of Mortal Kombat 10 and 11, with the three different martial art styles for each character in 10, and now the custom loadout creation you can make in 11. That gives players thousands of ways to play. Adding more moves means adding more fun.
Secondly, texture rendition of the game looks very bad.
You've reduced the texture quality one game at a time since Dead or Alive 4 (having the best colors and textures.)
The anime/cartoon look is not impressive.
It's actually very unattractive.
The thin glossy models of the characters cheapen the quality of the game, and make it look like a third rate indie fighting game.
Please put some depth into the textures, make them rigid and dark, and cool looking, instead of all glossy, smooth, bright, slender, and cute.
- The hair looks like three pictures, one for the pony tail, one for the head, and one for the bangs, smoothed out and shined. It doesn't resemble real looking hair at all.
- The face and skin is too smooth and shiny, with bright looking eyes, and facial features such as redness and make-up.
- The colors of the clothes are also just fake looking, either too bright or too flat, also lacking any kind of dark textures.
It's quite disgusting to look at for all non-doa-fighters out there, and makes all the doa-fighters look like sissy's, playing a sissy game.
If you want to make it look good, take tips from:
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- Uncharted 4
Just look at some of the faces and skin shades of the characters in those games. DOA can easily look like that if you just play around with the shading of the characters complexion. Please do something about it.
Third, you have to make the game EVEN FOR BOTH GENDERS.
Making it mostly women is not going to attract fighting gamers.
You need to have an EQUAL number of MALES and females.
It's a fighting game for god sake, fighting is a masculine trait. I mean, come on...95% of fighting game players are males.
I have nothing against feminine players, but you will NEVER see feminine players dominating any fighting game.
If you make the game EXACTLY equal for both masculine and feminine, meaning creating male characters to match the number of female characters, then your game will flourish.
It's a simple truth, and it will happen, if you don't break that promise.
People will recognize the depth and understanding of respecting both sides, and people love your game, and more players will attend your tournaments. And Mr. and Mrs. Erikawa will be happy with Team Ninja and give your team more say in the company, and give everybody a promotion because they'll be raking in the big bucks from all sides. It's not that hard.
Just do it right, and everyone will be happy.
Let's recap.
1. ATTACK LISTS AND CHARACTERS ARE EVERYTHING.
2. MAKE THE GRAPHICS LESS BRIGHT, SMOOTH, AND CUTE.
3. EQUAL NUMBER OF MALE AND FEMALES.
And the lack of the big time Koei Tecmo money and the deadline of the games release is what caused the game to be lacking.
I'm just going to point out my opinions on what a hot mess I think DOA6 is at this point.
Your first biggest problem is that you're always aiming to please the beginners.
I too have a soft spot for beginners and I'd like to help new people out, and I enjoy when new players learn. But oversaturating it with beginner quality content is only weakening the game.
With all due respect, I love your game, but you're killing it. Your methods to please both competitive and beginner crowds is ALL WRONG.
Your market plan to promise new characters "Only If" players buy new content is a wrong marketing strategy. I don't know what you call it in Japan, but in North America we call that blackmail, and you're not encouraging or shining any light to new players.
You want them to buy your content, you're going to have to stop listening to anyone who talks about the sexuality or the simplicity of the game, and only focus on the people who have a critical response to the mechanics.
Literally every competitive player has listed something great to improve the games quality and you've repeated turned your head and said "Nope. It takes away from the simplicity for beginners."
In order to create a big crowd of supporters who would kill to play your game, and make big sales like the fans of Tekken and Street Fighter, you need to make the game:
ALL ABOUT THE ATTACK LISTS, AND CHARACTERS!
That is the FIRST PRIORITY!!!
This is a crucial time...And Team Ninja, you need to hire more designers in Team Ninja's character/movelist design department, and that department has to forefront of the Dead or Alive game. That department has to be everything, and nothing should be more important than that department. Period.
This version of DOA is already easy, especially with the limited sidesteps.
Now you need to add a bunch of new attacks to each character, and continuously add new characters. At least 10 new moves need to be added to all the characters. There has to be multiple layers of playstyles for each character. The more diversity you create for character playstyles, the more of a fanbase you'll create for those characters.
Think of Mortal Kombat 10 and 11, with the three different martial art styles for each character in 10, and now the custom loadout creation you can make in 11. That gives players thousands of ways to play. Adding more moves means adding more fun.
Secondly, texture rendition of the game looks very bad.
You've reduced the texture quality one game at a time since Dead or Alive 4 (having the best colors and textures.)
The anime/cartoon look is not impressive.
It's actually very unattractive.
The thin glossy models of the characters cheapen the quality of the game, and make it look like a third rate indie fighting game.
Please put some depth into the textures, make them rigid and dark, and cool looking, instead of all glossy, smooth, bright, slender, and cute.
- The hair looks like three pictures, one for the pony tail, one for the head, and one for the bangs, smoothed out and shined. It doesn't resemble real looking hair at all.
- The face and skin is too smooth and shiny, with bright looking eyes, and facial features such as redness and make-up.
- The colors of the clothes are also just fake looking, either too bright or too flat, also lacking any kind of dark textures.
It's quite disgusting to look at for all non-doa-fighters out there, and makes all the doa-fighters look like sissy's, playing a sissy game.
If you want to make it look good, take tips from:
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- Uncharted 4
Just look at some of the faces and skin shades of the characters in those games. DOA can easily look like that if you just play around with the shading of the characters complexion. Please do something about it.
Third, you have to make the game EVEN FOR BOTH GENDERS.
Making it mostly women is not going to attract fighting gamers.
You need to have an EQUAL number of MALES and females.
It's a fighting game for god sake, fighting is a masculine trait. I mean, come on...95% of fighting game players are males.
I have nothing against feminine players, but you will NEVER see feminine players dominating any fighting game.
If you make the game EXACTLY equal for both masculine and feminine, meaning creating male characters to match the number of female characters, then your game will flourish.
It's a simple truth, and it will happen, if you don't break that promise.
People will recognize the depth and understanding of respecting both sides, and people love your game, and more players will attend your tournaments. And Mr. and Mrs. Erikawa will be happy with Team Ninja and give your team more say in the company, and give everybody a promotion because they'll be raking in the big bucks from all sides. It's not that hard.
Just do it right, and everyone will be happy.
Let's recap.
1. ATTACK LISTS AND CHARACTERS ARE EVERYTHING.
2. MAKE THE GRAPHICS LESS BRIGHT, SMOOTH, AND CUTE.
3. EQUAL NUMBER OF MALE AND FEMALES.