Hello Shelton,

Welcom to FreeStepDodge. Thank you very much for taking the time to ask Hayashi some questions. I enjoyed reading some questions he doesn't frequently get asked, "With DoA: D being on an handheld, do you think there will be a problem for this to be used in Tournament play @ majors?" and "What is Team Ninja’s views on the fighting game community as of right now?" in particular.

If you have a second chance of talking to Hayashi and would like some ideas for more hardcore questions asked to him about game changes and the like, feel free to ask this site. I'm sure some of us can give you some ideas and questions we would like answered .

Also, I've moved this to the Dead or Alive: Dimensions board for categorization reasons.

Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the site and community.

I would like to welcome you here to Freestepdodge as well Shelton. Thanks for the wonderful interview, and I hope you do get another chance at interviewing Hayashi. As Mr. Wah has stated, we would all be ecstatic in getting a more indepth dissection of the game.

Once again thank you, and continue doing the great work.

Welcome and thanks for the good interview.

As a tournament organizer I am very interested in possibly working with TN in having a DOAD tournament in hopes of regrowing the community. If you can help in some way of communicating that with Hayashi next time you interview him that would be smashing.

To add to this topic, feel free to post any questions you've been meaning to have asked to Team NINJA. Perhaps Shelton would be able to forward some of them over to Team NINJA. Maybe we could even get a reply from them.

As a side note, try to not make them "Yes or No" questions, that way the team couldn't do a "cop-out" with a simple "Yes" or "No".

For example:
The focus on attacks and stuns hurt the grappler class a lot in Dead or Alive 4. In earlier Dead or Alives, the grappler class would always have a one frame advantage in throws (4, 5, 6 initial frames compared to 5, 6, 7 for the non-grappler class) and their ground throw setups helped balance their lack of ability to perform juggle damage equal to the Striker classes. What changes have been done to Dead or Alive: Dimensions to return the grappler class to a viable class?

Being able to hold out of guard breaks, throw advantages, and the wall crumple nullified the danger from being put in these situations. How has this property been altered in Dead or Alive: Dimensions? A suggestion by many of the competitive players is to only allow Slow Escaping (Struggling) in these situations, how difficult would this be to implement?

In Dead or Alive 3 some characters had the ability to be at a Frame Advantage when their attack was blocked. These typically applied to the striker class of characters and allowed them to play differently from other types of characters - giving them a set of different strategies when compared to others. What is the possibility of the system returning to allow some characters to have these properties return?

Another one:
Some competitive players felt that the Dead or Alive 4 wall game allowed too many defensive options for the player who was hit into a wall (Slow escaping during the wall crumple very fast, being able to hold off the wall crumple at any hit level, teching off the wall, and being able to wake-up kick during that tech at any of the three hit levels to name a few) where the offensive player's only option was to guard, hold, or throw. What changes have been done to the wall system to allow an offensive player the opportunity to continue an offense, while still giving the defensive player a chance to defend?

The speed to turn around guarding was heavily increased in Dead or Alive 4. In previous Dead or Alive iterations, the speed was ~6 frames; in Dead or Alive 4 the speed was ~2 frames. This caused issues with characters that required that level of strategy to get their opponent back-turned (Lei Fang and Bass for example), making their traditional strategies and moves appear useless at higher levels. What has been done to the turning around by guarding frames to provide such characters with viable strategies?

Thanks Shelton. It's good to know that other people have the same questions. I personally tend to fall to grapplers in games, though typically pick a striker as a balance if I have the time. For example, when playing Guilty Gear I was using Chipp, Potemkin, Axl, and Anji. Street Fighter IV I used Guile and Makoto, and Street Fighter III I used Makoto and Alex. So yeah, it just seems offsided to me when you have a striker character not only be able to do an unbreakable combo throw, but to also get the option of doing a juggle from the throw as well.

I believe Bass is the only grappler in the DOA games that has had a launching throw (DOA3.1 / 3.2's ), but was taken out in DOA4 probably due to his string used to relaunch in juggles - which was also taken out in DOA4.

Another issue this brings up, the input command for the throws that did equal the Izuna Drop damage. For grapplers, they in DOA2/3 they could at least buffer the crouching command while in an animation state (Bass ;k:), but in DOA4 this option was removed and instead you were forced to get a grappler into crouching state first. However, the Izuna Drop and other unbreakable striker combo throws typically just need a half circle motion as well. Any way you stack it, it just seems like the true grapplers in the game are strikers.