The competitive side of a fighting game matters, in a sense.
The sense here being, fans of DOA want the game to be balanced well, to be tight and responsive with controls, and (for reasons unknown to me) to have lots of opportunities for guaranteed damage outside of air juggles (which DOA has never been about, making it as unique and different as Tekken is to Virtua Fighter).
- The game has to be enjoyable first and foremost, for it to be considered viable to play for any reason whatsoever. It shouldn't be a job, it should be fun to learn and fun to play. Another driving factor behind thisenjoyment is, as a player, not feeling like you're being toyed around with. Which brings us into the next item.
- DOA5's development has been riddled with many instances that have been questionable and non-enjoyable, both for spectators and for people who've had a chance to play the varying builds of this game (I am of course referring to various changes made through each build, both cosmetically and mechanically). The only real answer to counter nearly every piece of speculation that these different builds have created is to obviously just release the final game and let people play it in its entirety. September 25th is right around the corner, so for heaven's sake just keep calm.
As
popular as DOA4 was, even I can admit that although I played it nearly every day for 5 years, finding enough in it to return time and time again to compete, I never truly enjoyed playing it. The game always made me very angry, because the game was
very "offense" based. There were no longer any true safe moments in DOA4. Everything was risky, everything was a gamble, and although there were instances where a player could get out of a combo directed towards them (either with a proper counter or low-countering against a highstring), there were also instances where force-teching provided opportunities to keep the pressure on an opponent, implying that it wasn't even safe to be knocked down. We're not going to debate that a good player would minimize all situations where they'd be forced to tech, because that's going beyond the point that the offensive nature of DOA4 made it hard to approach.
I understand where people come from when they say this. It really was a unique addition to DOA4, but it didn't actually retract from the game's competitive nature. All the previous rules of DOA were still present, so these unsafe moments combined with strict offensively-rewarding behaviors in-fact made DOA4 "hyper-competitive," which paired with the 'perverse' side of DOA (depiction of women/DOAX) really resulted in game play and aesthetics that too seemed too 'deviant', even for the community of people who enjoy traditional arcade fighters, outside of previous fans of DOA.
For better or for worse, DOA5 still has an extreme depiction of women. They are still sexualized, and it shows even more considering how the graphical design for this game is now even more anatomically correct than previous DOA's.
There are ways to appease both fans of DOA with their expectations, as well as newcomers and popular names in the fighting game community, but they don't involve strongarming "hype" into the game, or whatever suspicious stuff has gone on between IGN and DOA5.
Now before you try to argue with me, I acknowledge that I did not summarize all issues with DOA4 in this post. This post is not meant to be anything other a reason to sit down, read something, and kill some time until the release version of this game gets in consoles.
I'm going to address the main reason why i'm making this post right now.
- Team Ninja, TecmoKoei, and IGN have all had hands in trying to "hype" this game up. Keep in mind these weren't community actions, but rather intentional social engineering through advertising. Before you get angry or scared of this fact, it has both helped and hindered DOA5. I shouldn't have to explain to the actual fans of DOA or even DOA5 who've had the chance to play the different builds of this game at so called "tournaments," that their presence and image was being used to push the idea that this game should be popular. I don't have to tell you that having these tournaments for an ever-changing game nearly impossible to actually train for, with awards intended to make the winners feel worthwhile, was fishy to say the least. What I do have to tell you is that these were all strictly publicity stunts. These varying builds were by Team Ninja's design. Of course this seems wrong in a way, but the way it has helped DOA5 is that most people never knew it was happening as it was. DOA5 got a lot of coverage and is ready to be released, with pre-order incentives, collectors edition incentives, and a unique demand for attention. It will assure the game sells decently well, even if a fraction of consumers do not end up taking a competitive standpoint towards this game. You want true competition? You're going to get it, in floods. The game will be popular, so right now it all just boils down to waiting for the final release of the game to completely understand every character.
- That being said, there's no reason to give up hope. When the final game ships and it turns out one thing or another has been changed or removed against expectations, be it mechanics or characters or even some aspect of aesthetics, there will still be the option to contact Team Ninja, and request. If many people request a single thing, it's likely to show up in their channels as something worth changing. If only one person tweets them and asks for fucking super saiyan goku or some ninja gaiden character, it likely wont impact their day. How do you think Tekken Tag 2 got multiple arcade releases? How do you think Street Fighter 4 turned into Super Street Fighter 4, then Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition and subsequently Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition 2012? Fans, man. You got a voice, so use it. Don't bother arguing with me, you won't change my opinion. I wouldn't mind if other aspects that I don't necessarily think a problem with were explained to me, just as I'd hope you wouldn't if I complained to you about something that didn't particularly matter to you.A community making an effort to contact Team Ninja is something worth noting.
Fight For
What's Right 
