Ok alot has happened since my last post and I just got around to following up.
Lets see,
Rikuto, I may have not had tournament experience with DOA, however I have competed in several other 2D/3D fighters and even proudly won a few and reached very far in others. I am also a VF player. Also, I need you to understand that DOA4 died at a very early stage of its life for me because of the many flaws that you guys keep pointing out. The game wasn't just flawed from the guessing aspect, it was flawed from every element it had to the point that it was not even playable for me. I was forced to move on by the game itself.
Come DOA5, now unlike many of you, I am greatful enough to acctually have had a good chunk of hands on experience with the latest builds and will also have more hands on come next week. I am not at liberty to say whats going on with it for the same restrictions DrDogg has. However, I do feel that you guys are overestimating everything.
You guys have thrown this at me before, and I am not going to say this to throw an argument, but, most of you have not had hands on with the game and are going by theory fighter. Wait and see it for yourselves.
The amount of sitdown stuns, backturned states, faints, the improvement to the evade systems in general be it the sidesteps or the freestepping, the 2-in-1s, the guaranteed follow-ups from environmental hazards be it walls or dangerzones, the new 3 launch height system where you get a better height with counter/highcounter and the deeper you go into stun, and FINALLY BURST. The game has honestly gone a long way and unlike most of you I am not speaking on speculation.
Burst is not as uncommon as you guys may think, and certainly when alot of the initial damage starts in DOA on counter/high counter. This also goes as an answer to the argument that the starter stuns of even fast characters are slow ones. Agreed, but these particular moves will not always be the start of the mix up because your "counter hit" faster strikes will do the most talking.
One other thing note worthy is that the number of moves that initiate the starter critical stun on normal hit have been significantly reduced and this can be felt strongly in the neutral game without considering counters.
Then comes the Japanese players, the guys that you are all saying that they don't have a grasp of how the game works etc. For one thing we can all agree that DOA was not as strong there as it was around the world. Another thing worth noting is that alot of these players for the most part had their first hands on with the game at Tougeki. Third, with complete disregard to burst, No1 was utilizing the sitdown stuns, the back turn stuns or the faints (the leifang player was just appauling). They might not have a clear grasp of the value of these things yet as we do. These things take time.
What I'm trying to say is that the guessing element of the game HAS BEEN REDUCED, and to a very good enjoyable level. The attacker is greatly rewarded and the damage is extremely reasonable for the most part, and most importantly FAIR.
I continue to say that my biggest gripe right now is towards hold recovery. It should remain at Alpha status. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to test this out very well and maybe DrDogg can elaborate more in the change as he has more hands on and possibly the frame data on this.
I hate DOA4 for all the reasons that the next guy does. But when I tell you the game is far away from DOA4 in terms of gameplay, I really do mean it. Its like they decided to blatantly skip DOA4 and work with what they had in DOA3 which is the evolution we all aspired to get in the first place.
I mentioned this before, I acknowledge the problems DOA4 has but I don't agree with the solutions given. As far as the "GUESSING" goes, you CAN go with the method of playing the guessing game but you will be missing out on all the great new stuns handed to you be it sitdowns, turn arounds, limbos, faints.. etc... at the same time, if you focus too much on the new stuns, these stuns are very damn predictable to see and you cant just go by them 100%. This same theory applies in VF and you have to change it up all the time. In addition, the guessing game itself has been extremely favored towards the attacker now mainly for the frame data change to holds. This should not change and I really hope you guys understand that holds need to be at Alpha demo status in terms of active and recovery frames in order for them to be nerfed properly. If there is anything you need to push across to TN more than anything it is THIS. When you hold in stun, you should stay in-stun until your wrong guess is punished with my attacking follow up. reducing frame data to the older DOAs eliminates this offensive concept and throws it out the window and resets stunstate to neutral. The timing of the Alpha demo in terms of total (active + recovery) frames was perfect and I think the most of us can agree on this.
I will hold back from having further arguments with you guys till the majority have had their hands on with the latest build this weekend.
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