Competitive balance: DOA5U mechanics changes

[Berzerk!]

Doa5 as a tournament game - where is it headed?
There has not been enough info on mechanical changes and I want to use this thread to discuss the need for robust mechanics and give consolidated feedback for the betterment of the mechanics

So first a statement then a starter list of topics

For Doa to be set up to gain new players and respect in the wider community it needs to be a robust tournament game
With a strong tournament game it will attract new players and gain the interest of tournament scene
When added to more tournaments the community can grow and be featured at bigger events

To achieve this it must avoid the trap of catering first to casual players in the gameplay mechanics

The great new content will keep casual players happy (and all fans)

But keeping tournament players happy will see the game played at events. We want the mechanics to show substance

It is important that any changes to the competitive balance of the game be revealed and fits the expectations of the competitive tournament players

Here's a list of items we need to hear more about.

Life settings
Guaranteed damage
Stun threshhold
Frame Advantage
Sidestep and movement
Good tool sets for all characters
Minimize the power of the hold
All play styles and characters effective

Lets look at the list produced for the 103 patch that definitely improved the game

Changes should not be reversed from that patch and some need to be taken further

Discuss here the items that should be changed or retained to ensure the game is COMPETITIVE

 

[Berzerk!]

Reserved for change list - will consolidate / summarise responses and comments here

JAPANESE FEEDBACK on the Player Discussion featured below:
http://freestepdodge.com/threads/co...5u-mechanics-changes.2972/page-11#post-104564

SHORT VERSION: PLAYERS ARE ALIGNED ON WANTING NORMAL LIFE 270
LOWER HOLD DAMAGE
MORE GUARANTEED DAMAGE SITUATIONS

Feedback on existing known changes:

Rumoured change to life setting - revert to 300 on Normal. (Japanese Demo) - Players want the life setting left at 270 or lower!

Response - Life setting - 300 was shown to be much too high and 270 widely accepted as a good change for the game.
This should be maintained to keep the game fast and exciting. Important for tournaments to run on time and avoid boring players watching, including wider fighting community.
More player comments:
-The series has worked with 240 since DOA2 and the overall pace of the game would benefit more from it. Using CB would benefit more and to balance it out, reduce hold damage just a little bit, like 15%.
-300 HP is too high plain and simple. You don't get as much damage reward for your combos or moves, and higher life = more sloppy and scrubby play leading to boring matches.


Rumoured change to hold damage - "increased" (Japanese Demo) - Players want hold damage DECREASED

Put simply, the hold is very powerful. Players are in favour of the risk/reward balance to be slightly tweaked. Increase recovery, and lower damage.
Do not go the other way.
Hold Damage should not be increased, but kept in balance with an overall more high damaging game. The current settings in DOA5 at 270 have been accepted including hold damage, but from a tournament level 240 life with a REDUCTION in hold damage, to emphasise the benefit of damage via attacks, is preferred.
Player comments
- Minimize the Power of the Hold: Yes please! Although I love that holds got nerfed in DOA5, I still find that they get abused and spammed. I want damage from strikes and combos, not hold spamming.
- In fact, I think most holds should deal about the same damage as Mila's mid punch hold. But they're fine in 1.03a.

Holds - CONFIRMED low hold extra 5 frames recovery in stun

This change is welcome. Could be broadened to ALL holds. Holds are extremely powerful and players recommend not only lowering the damage but ensuring missed holds are punishable.

Guaranteed Damage - More of it

Universally, players all want characters to have reliable options to generate guaranteed damage. Much of this relies upon improving the reliability of Unholdable situations and the Stun Threshhold
- We need more of it, natural combos and unholdable stuns should give enough advantage to guarantee a at least a level 1 critical launcher to take a nice juggle from it.

Stagger Escape - remove from Sit Down stuns


Stagger Escape - Players responded very strongly and positively to the removal of SE in the pre- 1.03 patch. To balance the guaranteed situations and reward players for landing specific moves, SE should be removed from all SIT DOWN stuns.
This will allow certain combos to be clear and guaranteed. Players will have specific options to set up with, and know what to counter hold or, avoid being hit by at all costs.
Introducing this level of certainty to particular moves will improve the stun/combo system and make the game much more solid and respected.

Stun Threshhold - reduce it to improve ability to Critical Burst.

Elaborated on in thread, but players want clear rewards for successfully putting their opponent into a situation. The clearest ongoing request is for the Stun Threshhold to be reduced, so the average of four hits (and the chance of the opponent to read/guess a hold out) to be reduced to three in more situations.
Sit down stuns as part of the pathway to critical burst should be tweaked to make CB more of a threat and viable alternative to guessing a stun or trying for a low launch. Essentially, the system is already close to a desired competitive level, but needs to move closer to the E3 2012 model.

One simple fix to Stun is very popular - Counting the first hit in a stun against the stun threshold

Player comments
Right now the Critical Threshold is 35, I think 25 should be the standard to everyone can get CB in three strikes and if they decide to launch without playing the stun system, they'd get a nice launch height.
Players would be happier to reduce the critical stun max by a smidgen to allow for one less guess before going for a max-height juggle.

Frame Advantage - Players want more safe moves and advantage on Guard Break
Player comments
ALL GUARD BREAKS should be positive (Tina's 6F+K for example is -5) as having negative ones kills the purpose of breaking a blocking state.
Slower characters cannot out-poke the faster characters, so they need a few moves that grant real advantage in order to apply pressure.
All characters need select moves that are safe on block and hit.

Sidestep and movement - increase speed and lower auto-tracking
Player comments
- Free Step Dodging should sidestep a few moves and the SS animation in general should work like the Defensive Move in VF5FS. The side stepping mechanic is lacking. It either needs to be sped up or a character's string should remain off-axis at any point it's side stepped unless an attack in the string is considered tracking
Backdashing also could use a tweak to allow for better whiff-punishing.

Rumour of Offensive Hold for whole cast - Players prefer individuality
Player comments
OH a good tool for grapplers to retain advantage, not for strikers

Force Techs
Players still want this in the game. It eliminates the opponents wakeup game and forces them back on their feet. Important pressure tool
So long as the situations to use it are consistent, clear and do not lead to recursive/degenerative loops. Give singular moves force tech ability, not multipart strings (Helena)

Input Responsiveness
Players have noted the game uses some "shortcut" inaccurate input reading and would like the accuracy of real input to be increased.

More consistency in attack height - highs beat mids, mid beat lows, lows beat highs
There are currently too many exceptions to this basic rule. Moves with "Crush" evasive quality should be few and clearly animated to work that way.

 

[Berzerk!]

Life setting - 300 was shown to be much too high and 270 widely accepted as a good change for the game.
This should be maintained to keep the game fast and exciting. Important for tournaments to run on time and avoid boring players watching, including wider fighting community.

 

[MasterHavik]

Can I add that everyone should have sometime of offense hold?

 

[synce]

You know what's funny they say they added power launchers so you can do more damage, but they increased the fucking lifebar, nevermind the fact you need to be half dead and stun someone 20 times to use one lol

 

[MasterHavik]

Kind of makes power launchers useless and makes DOA look like an anime fighter. Some say Tekken, but it's moreso got launchers like GG/BB/Persona/AH, and etc.

 

[grap3fruitman]

Can I add that everyone should have sometime of offense hold?

No, you shouldn't because that's a terrible idea.

 

[Berzerk!]

Added stun threshhold to the list of topics. I think one of the simple recommendations is that people want the stun pathway to critical burst to be shorter, for that option to be a more present threat, rather than a predictable layer to the mindgame.

The overall DOA5 system is very good, so its a matter of the properties of moves and system being kept solid.

On universal OH: The game already has enough good universal tools, and most strikers do not need this. I don't believe we should ask for this.

 

[Rikuto]

Can I add that everyone should have sometime of offense hold?

DOA 4 did that and it was terrible.

This is not something everyone should have.

 

[Berzerk!]

I've added some summary responses to the issues list. Will revisit the thread regularly to update and encourage everyone to regularly tweet the thread to Team Ninja.

Would like tournament players in particular veteran players to put their names to some recommendations. Much appreciated if you could, so we have a cosigned document.

 

[Chaos]

They really need to tone down the heavy stun system.

 

[Berzerk!]

They really need to tone down the heavy stun system.

Please be specific. This isn't a very helpful change request. The system is here to stay and honestly, its not so bad. Its a matter of how players are asked to utilise it.

What can be asked for is that the tools they have put in the system be made effective, like Critical Burst. The Stun Threshhold to activate Burst is too lengthy. This might be what you mean.

It doesn't require a reworking of the system, but a lowering of the threshhold, and you have a more robust system with a stronger risk-reward balance.

The other tools are sit-down and such guaranteed/unholdable stuns, and launchers.

 

[MasterHavik]

DOA 4 did that and it was terrible.

This is not something everyone should have.

Okay you and grape got me on this one. but some need them badly like Zack. But I can see how a tool like that for everyone would do more harm than good.

Question: If we got rid of OHs in general would that make DOA better?

 

[Matt Ponton]

I honestly would prefer they be reset to Catch Throws. That isn't going to happen I imagine.

 

[Berzerk!]

No. OH's are good tools for the characters that need them. Its a way to press advantage for grapplers, who are typically a bit slower.

Not every character needs that kind of move to open up opponents or retain advantage.

It would be best to focus on any systemic issues we are aware of, and any weak/deficient toolsets in the characters, rather than adding to the mix by asking for something like OH to be across the cast.

They made a goal of making each character unique, and at a basic level they have succeeded. The question is more about what is effective.

For example, can a character like Bass play his grappling game effectively if he doesn't have any good poking or pressure options to make the opponent want to block or counter?

this doesn't require any new tools, just a speed up of a couple of the existing tools like his pokes 1P, 2P and P+K.

As a general systemic issue that affects Bass, he would also need for Guard Break and other moves that appear to grant advantage to actually give a useable advantage so the player has effectively employ those tools.

 

[Rikuto]

Okay you and grape got me on this one. but some need them badly like Zack. But I can see how a tool like that for everyone would do more harm than good.

Question: If we got rid of OHs in general would that make DOA better?

I would prefer there be less of them, and they became catch throws. I feel too many characters have them. It should be a very character-specific thing.

On dragon gunner, it makes sense. On Bayman's moves, it makes sense. For Bass to have one or two, it makes sense.

For everyone and their mother outside of that circle, it does not make sense. And Zack sure as hell does not need one. He's fast enough with his mid without giving him extra pressure.

 

[J.D.E.]

There were a few characters that needed buffs because they were all the ones who had to play the guessing game more often than others in DOA5. They needed good guaranteed setups on start-up like Eliot, Hayate etc. They were headed in the right direction. By the info that I got now it seems like everybody will be playing the 50/50 situation game like those certain ones were before. But worse.

I hope they stick with the guaranteed setups, but they haven't showed any of that yet. I'm still gonna give it a run but I hope it's not like a sequence of constant looping. Plus, they took away force techs. Maybe they will give everyone new guaranteed tools or hear something better moving forward because it's a new game. So far, I don't like the changes at all.

 

[Koompbala]

Perhaps elaborate on the "Guaranteed Damage" aspect. Keep sitdown stuns to launch, keep guard crushes, and keep the ground game. For ground game they need to keep the guaranteed damage characters get from untechables and they need to keep the pseudo/FT aspect of the game also.

To achieve this it must avoid the trap of catering first to casual players in the gameplay mechanics

The great new content will keep casual players happy (and all fans)

But keeping tournament players happy will see the game played at events. We want the mechanics to show substance

This is why other games has failed not just doa. Not gonna name any games because I know it will derail this thread, but I 100% agree with this.

 

[Berzerk!]

Plus, they took away force techs. Maybe they will give everyone new guaranteed tools or hear something better moving forward because it's a new game. So far, I don't like the changes at all.

Good comments ... but lets be aware that we don't have a lot of information about force techs and wouldn't take rumors of their removal as a given.

Force techs will still be in the game, but may be reduced and the demo kiosk players haven't found them yet. Its a problematic system because its not very consistent. They need to streamline it and make the situations where you can force tech very clear, while avoiding vortex loops. The reduction of force teching may be part of that, it may be a removal.

Force techs can be good but overall not as important as giving characters ways to put pressure on waking opponents generally, while at the same time the defensive player has smart options to evade or outlast pressure.

Basically, players that don't think and just press buttons on wakeup, should be easy to punish, players that are smart and punish poorly applied pressure should be rewarded by turning things around.

For everything else, there are good reads and holds.

 

[Saber]

I actually like force techs because it is an excellent pressure and offensive tool, but to balance it out, nothing after a force tech is guaranteed. It's just pure frame advantage.

And people use it because wake-up kicks (not sure about other wake up attacks) have invincibility frames, and despite the fact that they're nerfed, they still are pretty dangerous.

I don't like that a lot of moves have their force tech properties removed.