Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate

[Force_of_Nature]

That's called conditioning. Yes, a large part of DOA is conditioning. It's also realizing when you've accidentally conditioned your opponent to exploit your own weaknesses.

Then you have to determine whether or not they are the kind of personality that is also attempting to condition you. Then you have to determine whether or not they are capable of recognizing their pattern has been spotted before you've exploited it and are going to change it up.

And then you have to double check and make sure that this is actually the case, and they were not just hitting buttons in an arbitrarily random fashion which made it seem like this was the case.

It's a shame you can't figure any of this out without taking some damage first. That is, if anything, the biggest flaw to fighters at the moment.

This is why matches are best 3 out of 5 rounds, and tournament matches are best 3 out of 5 sets (or 2 out 3). If matches were only one round then this would be right. The whole match is one big conditioning fest until it comes down to the last rounds. On the final round, the big question is "Who's been conditioned more"?

 

[Rikuto]

There is also a large room for debate over whether or not that kind of set really determines anything.

One school of thought is that such a short set can't really determine who has greater knowledge, adaptability and mental fortitude. Doing a first to 10 endurance match only begins to scratch a persons mental fortitude and ability to deceive his opponent while covering his own tracks.

In a first to 2, I feel as though you barely have time to come into any kind of understanding whatsoever of your opponent. The mind game feels absent, and instead becomes a high-stress game of chicken and parlor tricks. A game of "OH NO HE DIDN'T!"

Of course, such insanely long sets could never be done in a manageable fashion, so... derp.

 

[Windstar]

Time to vent!

So I proceeded play a bit of online last night and today and went through trying out various Heichu setups, combo practice against live players. I find doing this stuff in live play tends to help me more than going through practice mode. I end up fighting a player named Tsunade_777 on ranked. Played a Rachel and Lisa tag team. The player apparently had a 50+ win streak and ran through the match using nothing but Rachels mid kick (I'm not sure the command, its a long reach snap kick) and that was it. With Lisa it was all about 1PKK2K.

Naturally, I lost.

I then get rage mail from the player - poorly worded and with many misspellings. I don't really care.

But this player did give me some interesting insights to how often players like this one and others in this game I've encountered do things. And its rather annoying. I decided to try and confirm my theory.

So next few fights I run in this one player who has Jann Lee and Lei-Fang tag team. Absolutely brilliant tag team combos doing 50%+ damage and everything. I fight "normally" and just observe some basic things about the player. How often he eats a counter hit and how limited his move set is. Seemed to have some very basic flaws here and there. I lose.

Next time I encounter him, I play using Kokoro's 2H+KK string (and only this string) after every blocked string he does. He eats every counter hit, multiple times and loses Jann Lee during the match while my Kokoro's health lost was 10 or 15% health lost. I repeat this process against his Lei-Fang and win the round. I repeat the same strategy in round 2 and decide to throw the match by the time his Lei-Fang had lost 50 to 66% of her health. It was pretty sad. Great timing in getting that 50% combo down, but lacking in everything else.

I decide to fight some other players and use basically the same strategy with Kokoro 2H+KK, running entire rounds just doing that attack, multiple times, with multiple counter hits. Some pick it up and learn and then I mix in 2H+KP and Heichu and 7K. Just basic stuff really. But it was pretty amazing the reaction that I encountered with many players.

They don't block.

What is the first thing this game teaches you in story mode? The very first thing? It is not how to hold. It is not how to punch. It is not how to kick. It not how to throw. It's not even how to move. They teach you how block. And it is amazing - absolutely amazing - that players fail to grasp this very simple concept. This should not be difficult to understand; it eludes me why so many players fail to grasp this simple command. It defaults to the button used to reload on an FPS. It's the default button to attack in SNES and PSX era 2D platformers. Your thumb naturally grapples to it next to the X button on the PS3 controller. It should not be difficult to grasp this button before anything else. The natural reaction of martially untrained people is to take a defensive position when being struck. The first thing you learn in martial arts is defense, how to block. What is the first thing Pat "Mr. Miyagi" Morita teaches Daniel-san? How to block.

If cannot grasp this simple concept. If cannot see the importance why there is a guard button. If your first instinct is to smash the attack button, I fear there may be something wrong with you. Maybe its due to the game-like atmosphere that doesn't convey a sense of real-world risk and survival. Maybe its due to Street Fighter 4's broken reversal system where mashing out DPs while being hit is a better scrub strategy that trying to block. I can't tell you. But what I can say is, you're doing it wrong.

If I'm sitting there, mashing out the same basic stuff - very clearly and very simply - and you are falling for it every time, then there is something very wrong with your capacity to learn or focus. If I am sitting there, repeatedly hitting you with the same exact move and you are taking a counter hit after counter hit after counter hit for the entire round, I would probably go back to learning the basics of this game; maybe even seek medical attention in case of possible brain damage.

I would like to learn how to improve as player playing this fighting game. If I am stuck playing simple minded games with you that you are incapable of understanding or defending against, you are wasting my time as well as your own. I cannot improve in this game and neither can you, if cannot grasp simple concepts like learning to block properly and not smash attack buttons when you're being hit.

I don't care if you don't read the tutorial - some players are better at learning when facing real matches, some aren't. I don't care. I only care if you give me a chance to learn something and play a good smart game. I do not like having to dumb down my tactics just to kick your butt and post it online to humiliate you. And I do not like having to go easy on players because they fail to learn fundamental concepts of the game.

So learn to play, or I will be forced to do dumb things to you, and you will look bad. Neither of us wants that.

 

[Rikuto]

The other funny thing about DOA.

The lowest level players will do everything in their power to continue hitting buttons and not block.

The highest level players will do everything in their power to continue hitting buttons and not block.

The mid level guys will block more than anybody, though.

Blocking seems "logical", but low level players don't yet grasp logic. The mid level players do, so it is instinctual. The high level players recognize something else though -- that this is a game about momentum, where throw breaks do not exist. When throw breaks do not exist, and certain throws grant juggles into resets or just stuns, it drastically turns the momentum of the fight instantly to one side. This makes blocking far riskier than in most other fighters.

Minimizing your need to block means constant risky interruptions, sidestepping (tank rolling, in my case), and parries to turn back the momentum before the string delay game finally leads to its inevitable conclusion of being thrown. In my case, I prefer to play the spacing game as much as humanly possible as that results in the most consistent reward for intelligent play. When you get to infighting, things can get very messy very fast unless you have a strong grasp on exactly what you're opponents patterns already are. This is what makes DOA seem like such a reckless game, even at high level, but its necessary recklessness in many cases.

Rachel is a perfect example of how everything in life goes wrong if you rely on block as anything other than a desperation tactic.

DOA is very much "Abare".

That does not excuse the low level players from just tossing out random stuff though. They are a silly lot.

 

[Reptile]

Throw breaks don't exist? You mean they're "hard"? Or random? Cause they're there.