3-Point Hold v. 4-Point Hold

[EMPEROR_COW]

here we go..

- Normal Hit launchers don't matter because the chances of you catching someone on NH are close to nothing. You're more likely to hit them on CH anyway. Those other ones you mentioned were really easy to hold in 4, and if they're mid they'd be that much easier in 5.

I disagree and NH launchers are very affective in many cases be it a whiff punish , a hold punish , or a launch after stun ...
but you missed my point, i wasnt even saying normal hit launchers were better .. I was simply stating that there are many GOOD high launchers .. be it a NH or requiring stun ..

The point was that it's a better idea to go for the mid launch because the only thing they can do to stop it is hold mid. Highs can be held out of by holding low. Just because a launch has a follow up doesn't mean you'll be able to use it effectively, you have to hit confirm Busa's 8K,K, and that's not an easy task. If I were on offence and I thought they were going to low hold I wouldn't be using that at all anyway. I'd be using 33p or 124p in 5 and 7k, 6kk, or 4k while rising in 4. I'd still get more damage from throwing low though.

It's a 50/50 if you choose to play the way I suggested.

this goes down to playing the opponent and figuring out his hold preference .. restricting your gameplay to mids and lows severly limits you .. sometimes a simple can be effective enough in increasing stun or just chipping away at damage ...

I think we should play DOA, it would be easier to show you.

gladly .. do you live in london ? if you do we can arrange a meeting through PM .. maybe you can even help me out with the recordings that require more than 2 hands ...

You shouldn't be randomly jumping in on characters with DP's. Assuming you get a safe jump you can use OS to kill any guessing.

I wasnt talking about safe jump .. i was talking about a dry jump from standing .. particularly sagats uppercut ...
lets say you're using juri ... if spaced right I can empty jump and render his uppercut completely useless even though it may have the illusion of acctually hitting .. same thing with non DP characters and their normal anti-airs .. you are less likely to get hit with an empty jump ... and there are many situations where a jump like that is viable ... (punishing a fireball from a certain distance comes to mind ) .. on the other hand once you go for an air attack your hitbox gets extended and those normal antiairs or sagats uppercut .. would hit .. safe jumping is a different ball game .. sorry I should have been more clear with my example .. I specificly mentioned juri because she has a very deceptive jump arc as well .. another example would be with dhalsim ... because his teleport is 0 frame I can on reaction bait air reversals out with this same manner or just go in with a hit .. ive even won tournament matches like this (one hilarious recent semi final comes to mind .. id gladly link it if you're interested .. lol ) .. anyway .. lets not turn this into an sf discussion (but i would gladly continue this in PM ) ...

They aren't that effective; you aren't going to run into many NH situations, if any.
You aren't going to be near a wall that often
Those are only near the wall.
You can still guess out of that.

i mentioned before this isnt mainly about NH but they do infact work ..

have you played the alpha demo long enough ? the stages are pretty narrow and you do hit the wall quite often to the point that you can consider it a valid 3rd option in addition to launches and trip stuns .. the game is quite aggressive in that sense

-
You're right those aren't bad options, but to get those you have to use a low sweep which are usually super slow, or stun them first to knock them over. Also, in the beta the ground game isn't that good, so you aren't getting the same opportunities you did in DOA4. Launching is the better option in 5 right now.

its the better option yes but not the only option .. even if you compare the damage output in doa4 .. ground states were not too great either when you compared them to the launches .. but still they were an option ..

-
In the current system 3 point is just too easy, but like grape said the problem is the ability to hold in the first place.

I did a little reply on this just before this one ..
and with the way the game currently flows i feel it fits .. yes its easier i dont disagree .. but it fits .. kinda like how it fit in doa 3.1 ..

 

[Jefffcore]

- You couldn't just hold from everything in 3.1

- High holds don't matter, you can still hit him with a mid and launch him just like a low. If someone's throwing highs they have the risk of you holding low or the high every time. If you were to throw a jab you could stop and react to a low hold now, yes, but that's entirely different than launching with a slow, unsafe high attack. If you do extend the stun you're still going to want that launch.

 

[EMPEROR_COW]

i fixed it .. lol

 

[Baron West]

snip

You've stated mostly straightforward facts that I don't see any reason to disagree with.

I compared DOA3 to Halo to demonstrate that a launch title can be a smash hit despite relatively small user base. Saying it's apples and oranges because Halo is a different Genre game is all good and well, but my point is simple enough; a smash hit is a smash hit. DOA3 was a success, yes, but it wasn't a smash hit, because it was not an amazing fighting game compared to it's rivals.

Just as you say VF2 is the best selling Virtua Fighter game in the series. Considering how small the user base was on the Saturn this is phenomenal. My point? A hit is a hit. VF2 was definitely a smash hit.

The X-Box version of SCII didn't suffer from slowdown nearly as frequently as the PS2 version, so yes, I am referring to the technical aspects of the game. Despite offering a superior gameplay experience, just as you said, the PS2 version was the tournament standard. Crap-tier Spawn, Mid Tier Link, and Broken Heihachi don't factor into my criteria as fun as they were to play. Since they were all banned it didn't matter from a competitive standpoint either.

"Tekken is the best selling fighting game franchise in the world. There's no reason to expect any DOA to outsell and equivalent Tekken title."

Yes...and as long as the developers don't take to heart the issues that have been reiterated in this thread by yourself and others this will continue to be the case.

Conversely, having a 3-point hold system actually creates more of a guessing game than a 4-point system. If most launchers are mid, and the best counter option is mid, then you have a much greater chance of landing a hi-counter throw... which means it's even more dangerous to attempt the mid hold.

Seriously... there isn't a significant difference between 3-point and 4-point. People don't want 3-point, but making it 4-point won't fix the miniscule competitive scene. Until some of you understand that concept, this debate is pointless.

This sums up things succinctly. Unfortunately it makes so much sense that it will go over people's heads.

 

[grap3fruitman]

What are the actual flaws? That you can do it in stun? That there is still holds in the game? Not sure you even know what the flaws are.

It's pretty clear that you don't actually understand the flaws.

We asked TN for a long time to lower the damage and window of the hold and they finally did exactly that but now there is still flaws?

They adjusted the damage, I'll give you that, but do you honestly think the hold window has been fixed? The hold still has the most active frames out of anything else in the game and they're still excessive. The hold still comes out instantly and I can still do the hold in more situations than I can do attacks or throws (i.e. in stun).

DOA4 wasn't bad because it had the 4 point hold system. It was 'bad' because of several reasons and you know that. Was DOA2(U) 'bad'? HECK NO! that game is the most successful of the whole franchise and it had 4-Point holds! so the argument of saying DOA4 had 4-point and it was still bad is not valid here. Nice try though.

Could you please point me to the statement where I said "DOA4 was bad because of 4-point holds?" Because I didn't say that. You always do this, you argue a point that no one made and then act like you've won the argument. How do I continue to argue with someone so thick? Kyle on South Park said it best:

"Your ego is so out of whack that it will do whatever it can to protect itself. And people with a messed up ego can do these mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're awesome when really they're just douchebags."​

 

[Rikuto]

It's pretty clear that you don't actually understand the flaws.


They adjusted the damage, I'll give you that, but do you honestly think the hold window has been fixed? The hold still has the most active frames out of anything else in the game and they're still excessive. The hold still comes out instantly and I can still do the hold in more situations than I can do attacks or throws (i.e. in stun).


Could you please point me to the statement where I said "DOA4 was bad because of 4-point holds?" Because I didn't say that. You always do this, you argue a point that no one made and then act like you've won the argument. How do I continue to argue with someone so thick? Kyle on South Park said it best:

"Your ego is so out of whack that it will do whatever it can to protect itself. And people with a messed up ego can do these mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're awesome when really they're just douchebags."​

I believe they actually increased the damage on high-counter Izuna.

Your previous posts arguing this appear reference and rely on examples from DOA4.

If you'd like to make clear your personal experience with DOA5 and reflections on that it will better clarify your point. At this stage it's hard to tell what comments are from the armchair and which reflect actual testing in the new game.

ARMCHAIR? I'm an ARMCHAIR DOA player? Wow.

Look asshole, If I wanted to I could break this game down and never actually touch it. You know why? Because I've already spent years upon years perfecting my doctrine of DOA 4 and the 4 point hold system. I've accumulated so much experience that I can tell what something is when I see it. I've been a long time on DOA 3 as well, longer than most, and I know how the differences in system design affect high level play.

Now as I've said, I've explained why it's a 50/50 several times already in great detail. I'm not going to do it again. If you're having difficulty finding one of the countless multi-paragraph forum posts i've made on the issue, that is your problem. I'm not going to hold your hand, especially when you've got the gall to call me a fucking armchair player. If anyone is an armchair player here, it's you. You've never had the chance to actually play decent people in the game.

And, oh yes, I've tested the new game too.

 

[virtuaPAI]

-Lets go beyond the stupid 3 point vs 4 point arguments here. I personally do not want another Doa1, Doa2, Doa3 and damn sure not another Doa4. What Some of you guys need to understand..as well as Team ninja, This is a new game in the series, with the ability to have a brand new start. Doa is not Holds, and it is not the stun system. Doa is the sum of all its parts. It would not hurt the game nor the community if Team Ninja revamped the stun and hold system.

-Some of you here are afraid that you will be trapped in long combos and the game will be like MvC etc. Here's a thought, you won't be put into a steady flow of combos if you had a good defense. Except for a very few, no one is realizing how stupid it sounds to discuss how many hold points is needed in stun, when the discussion should be placed on "Defense". If many of you learned good defense, there will be no need for a critical holds in the first place.

-There is a way to both remove critical holds while not breaking the stun system. A very simple fix at that.

• Make all launches normal launchers = moderate juggle damage output.
• Let the threshold of all stuns only allow 2-3 hits...ie before the opponent is knocked down
• Transitioning of stuns hold the same threshold, nothing is added or taken away..ie going from a stomach crumple to a trip stun. Meaning, any followup attack that causes a stun change counts as one of the three attacks alloted.
• Further reduce the amount of stuns in the game.

Competitive players will be rewarded for getting a stun(something that have been wanted for years), The amount of punishment will not be at MvC levels,However it will put enough fear into players to have better defense.

 

[Berzerk!]

ARMCHAIR? I'm an ARMCHAIR DOA player? Wow.
<snip nonsense>

And, oh yes, I've tested the new game too.

I didn't call you an armchair player, or anything at all. I ASKED you if you had played the new demo as I couldn't tell if your comments were in relation to DOA4 which I KNOW you have extensive high level experience in (as do I - your accusation that I never played good players is wrong. I've played all the top US players), and whether they were speculative comments on DOA5 and if you had played it.

There's no insult here. If you hadn't played the DOA5 demo and were extrapolating from DOA4 experience, then no matter how valid your opinions may bear out to be, they would accurately be described as armchair opinions - eg - without testing. I'm not saying this has NO value, but I'm sure you understand the reason to clarify as real testing provides a different focus for one's point of view.

It's good if we can be clear about which iteration of the game we're talking about when providing an argument. A lot of posts have been ambiguous in this regard.

 

[Allan Paris]

It's good if we can be clear about which iteration of the game we're talking about when providing an argument. A lot of posts have been ambiguous in this regard.

DOA4 and DOA5a are so similar, though. Can we truly separate them as of now? I know of the good things in the demo but, it's not enough to really separate them on a competitive standpoint.

 

[Rikuto]

The term armchairing means to give out opinions and criticize without having any actual experience yourself. Yes Berzerk, that was a big fucking insult, especially to someone who has put years into the franchise and has much much much more experience than you do. If you did not realize this than you need to not throw out terms you don't understand.

Furthermore, nothing new has really been added in the alpha demo that wasn't already in DOA 3 besides powerblows (worthless) and a couple of goofy dangerzones (which change nothing in how the game is played). How would any of this fall outside of my area of expertise?

 

[Berzerk!]

Stop waving your dick around. You don't know my experience and its not relevant to the discussion (nor is your need to express how great you are in every single thread. Nobody gives a damn). I wasn't having a go at you. I was asking if you were talking about your - acknowledged - extensive - DOA experience prior to DOA5, or if you were actually referencing real playtesting in DOA5.

I understand the term "armchair" and I understand the usage of it. You are the one who got emotional and misunderstood. You are not an armchair player, you are an experienced player, but if you have NOT tested the game at hand, your comments on DOA5 demo would accurately be described as "armchair comments".

I've actually been on playtest teams for other games (CCGs) and the designers specifically use the same phrasing around it. They recruit experienced top players and ask them NOT to make armchair comments, they ask them to TEST, and then comment.

It is NO insult to those top players whose valuable feedback they are seeking. It is, as I asked, a point of clarification - are you speaking from your knowledge of the game history, or are you speaking from experience of testing this new thing we have for you NOW?

Like I said, an armchair comment from an experienced player still has value, but it's good to know what the hell we're actually talking about - common experience of testing the new game or comment based on history/experience.

Experience is important, testing is important. They complement one another but are two different things. You've made much too big a thing of this SIMPLE point of clarification. Relax.

 

[Berzerk!]

Conversely, having a 3-point hold system actually creates more of a guessing game than a 4-point system. If most launchers are mid, and the best counter option is mid, then you have a much greater chance of landing a hi-counter throw... which means it's even more dangerous to attempt the mid hold.

Seriously... there isn't a significant difference between 3-point and 4-point. People don't want 3-point, but making it 4-point won't fix the miniscule competitive scene. Until some of you understand that concept, this debate is pointless.
~
Yes, the debate for this specific topic is between 3-point and 4-point holds. But guess what? The topic is here because people want to see a solid competitive scene for DOA5. Changing the Alpha to 4-point holds is not going to do that.

The greater point you're making here is fair and that is there are other factors to address to improve the game.

However, it is also fair to say the interest in a 4 point hold system is one factor. As is reducing the active window and increasing the recovery. As is providing further options in the total game system around the holds to minimise reliance on them as a defensive option. As is examining holds in critical stun.

To say there's little difference between 3-point and 4-point so why bother is so surprising to hear from you as you understand balancing the game will require a range of little differences.

Also saying it won't fix the competitive scene is a straw man argument. Noone is suggesting doing this ONE thing will fix the competitive scene. No ONE thing in ALL of the mechanics of this game will change that. The community will change that, and the community wants the most solid game possible.

If you say the 3 point system creates more of a guessing game, then why not mitigate it with this step? And then, ADD to that the other factors we've been talking about.

It's really not an either-or thing. They can walk and chew gum at the same time, and need to.

 

[x Sypher x]

ARMCHAIR? I'm an ARMCHAIR DOA player? Wow.

Look asshole, If I wanted to I could break this game down and never actually touch it. You know why? Because I've already spent years upon years perfecting my doctrine of DOA 4 and the 4 point hold system. I've accumulated so much experience that I can tell what something is when I see it. I've been a long time on DOA 3 as well, longer than most, and I know how the differences in system design affect high level play.

You actually created a doctrine? WOW. Would you like a medal of honor? A Nobel Peace Prize perhaps? Shall I bow at your feet and hail your name too Rikuto? Because clearly you are the shit and you want everyone to know...

Naaah I'm just trolling man lol, sorry if I struck another nerve. I was just bored and felt like being out of character for a moment. I shall move along now.

 

[Rikuto]

ffs.... ok, great, time to be a dick again.

*Rikuto Casts: SUMMON LEVEL 99 WALL OF PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE TEXT!!*

Stop waving your dick around. You don't know my experience and its not relevant to the discussion (nor is your need to express how great you are in every single thread. Nobody gives a damn). I wasn't having a go at you. I was asking if you were talking about your - acknowledged - extensive - DOA experience prior to DOA5, or if you were actually referencing real playtesting in DOA5.

I'm going to explain what exactly it is that just happened here, so you can get some context of what is happening right now.

For the last week, people have been making the argument about the hold system being 3 point, 4 point, why its good or bad for the game, whatever. I've interjected several times and had to correct people, show them the odds of winning a stun engagement from first strike to full critical threshold, and how the payoff/payback and chance of failure scales against the attacker with every round of attacks. They actually listened, and said that they understood. After this point, It's not up to me how they feel about it, it's only important that they understand it.

Now what YOU did was was start up with the same argument after a full week of having it and just ignore the discussion outright. I told you "You've wrong, I've done this and I'm not doing this again" in so many words. I gave you all of clues you needed to look up the discussion and learn the facts for yourself. Here's the problem -- it isn't in your nature to just concede somebody might actually know what they are talking about. You've always done this with your straw man arguments. Your style is to be as neutral as possible while disagreeing with whoever has momentum, like you're somehow bringing balance to the universe by lawyering everyone to death and leaving every discussion open at the end.

Your way of masking the facts and leaving room for doubt was, this time, to infer that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about at the possibility of not playing the demo (which I have). I take big issue with that.

And actually I don't know your skill level, but I do know what it isn't. I have a very good insight on the skill level of anyone who I did not personally play offline between 2006-2009. This is not because my dick will split the clouds every time I unzip, it's because nobody ever pressed themselves to become as good as we were at that point in time at this game. Mostly due to the money involved. It made us come up with fighting-game-logic-defying math tactics that were somewhat solid (not to mention boring) and made us semi-consistent in a game where nobody should be either consistent or solid. Nobody else had that kind of motivator. Nobody ever played the game that anal retentive before, nobody has played it that way since. I was not the best, but I was a very close runner up to the big 4 and I have been known to beat them in competition.

Now putting away the dick here, when I say something is a 50/50 in all practicality, it's because it is. I'm not going to interject with my thoughts on something just to mislead you or to get attention. When people go around telling me that I'm wrong on something concerning DOA though, I have two options of recourse.

--The first is to ignore the fact that you're attempting to argue with someone who has been where you haven't and just explain why you are wrong. I've done this before, as mentioned, but I'm getting tired of doing it. It stresses me out to have so little respect that people feel they need to fight with me rather than make the attempt to understand what I'm telling them. This eventually invokes a more hostile response.

--The second is to remind you of who I am, how I got here, and why that is relevant to what I say. This won't be done in any polite manner when it gets to this point. I don't like doing this either because it gives off the vibe I'm just some egomaniac, but when it gets to this point it is because you've personally fucked up in dealing with me. You don't see mamba, offbeat, PL or ninjaCW coming out to argue with me too often now do you? You won't see me arguing with them either, most of the time. We know things that you don't understand and can't understand until you've reached that point through experience. Master may argue with me (and with everyone else I mentioned), but that would never surprise anybody given his circumstances.

I don't enjoy this dick swinging Zerk. I like discussion, and I like questions and answering them when I can. I like people researching things and sharing them. But I don't think you fully appreciate how tiring it is having someone else trying to casually sew seeds of doubt into everything you say when you're one of the only people in the discussion to have even the slightest clue what's going on.

Do you ever stop to think, "This sounds really wrong. But hey wait, this Rikuto guy, he was pretty successful and he must have come across this problem before, maybe I should ask for clarification on what he means before I try to lawyer him to death"?

Having arguments is great and it's how we learn some things, but i'm not going to argue with you every time you should be asking a question. And no, not the question "Are you credible? I think you might be not". You go out of your way to cling to any possibility that someones established logic might be incorrect. That's great when you're trying to discover new things, but that's not what is happening here. You're arguing just for the sake of it. Stop trying to assume you know more than you do. You couldn't possibly because you've never had to put any of it into practice before. Some things are only learned through harsh trial, that's nothing against you.

And in the rare case I am actually completely wrong about something DOA related, I'll eat my hat over it.

 

[Rikuto]

You actually created a doctrine? WOW. Would you like a medal of honor? A Nobel Peace Prize perhaps? Shall I bow at your feet and hail your name too Rikuto? Because clearly you are the shit and you want everyone to know...

Naaah I'm just trolling man lol, sorry if I struck another nerve. I was just bored and felt like being out of character for a moment. I shall move along now.

Shiet, son I wrote the Bible of back breaking. No, no, not that kind.

 

[DriftSlave]

with that said...doesn't this conclude the discussion on 3 point vs 4 point holds? I mean we wont have much to discuss until the E3 build...

 

[Berzerk!]

What's funny about this is I wasn't even arguing with you, I sought clarification of which era of DOA you were anchoring your examples on and whether you were basing your comments on the new game.

Look at how much text you generated over misunderstanding that. You only had to say "yes, I've played the new demo and my comments, while based on a range of experiences in DOA4 in particular, still stand".

Or, "No, I haven't played the demo, I'm arguing based on DOA4. I don't see much difference in DOA5 but I haven't tested it myself"

That would have been simple. I'm not casting any aspersions or sewing any seeds of doubt. No lawyering. I was checking where you were coming from. That's a positive for clarity in a discussion.

Your overreaction is quite apart from merits of all of this and was in response to a misunderstanding of my intent in using the word "armchair." It was part of the question, not an accusation.

As for the holds discussion, I think we ultimately agree that your favoured solution of no-holds in critical stuns should be implemented. We agree to the bigger picture that holds should be adjusted.

If we remain solution focused, there's a lot of common ground. Holistically speaking, we're driving at the same thing.

As an aside - granular disagreement is ok. Such as the point I make that there is merit in a 4 point hold system and that not every situation in DOA ends in 50/50. I appreciate the argument being put that it ends up as 50/50 in effect - but its a genuine and reasonable counter viewpoint to say that this is oversimplified. The choices available are more than two, so it's not a 50/50, so people are going to respond with some incredulity here.

That's not arguing for the sake of it, there's genuine cause for differing viewpoints (and people should not be bullied into agreeing based on claims to authority).

There's a whole interesting discussion on whether the "everything becomes 50/50" argument is relying on the players to make the most effective response/reaction each time. That realistically doesn't happen consistently in fighting games due to human reaction and high level players are also susceptible to having an opponent "train" them into doing the "wrong" thing.

Let's leave the pop psychology/judgemental/presumptive nonsense out (Edited out responding to pointless stuff)

 

[Allan Paris]

Shiet, son I wrote the Bible of back breaking. No, no, not that kind.

That book must be sold out or discontinued. I never read it. Had to be some book, though.

with that said...doesn't this conclude the discussion on 3 point vs 4 point holds? I mean we wont have much to discuss until the E3 build...

For some people yeah, others may want to put in their 2cents.

 

[DriftSlave]

For some people yeah, others may want to put in their 2cents.

true that, everyone will say what they want in the end...well if they want to voice their opinion that is.

I just don't want to be caught up in that shit storm of a argument ....

 

[Allan Paris]

I just don't want to be caught up in that shit storm of a argument ....

Well, just don't click on this thread.