• Stun threshold has been reduced by about 20% across the board, meaning you spend less time stuck in someone's combo
  
• A redesigned wall hit system
  
• Normalization of launch heights to be max height 100% of the time
  
• Sidestepping has been buffed substantially
  
• The removal of Slow and Stagger Escape
  
• Severe neutering of forcetechs, removing almost all blenders from the game
  
• The removal of Crit Bursts, Power Blows, and Power Launches
  
• Introduction of the Special button, an auto combo button for beginner players
  
• The introduction of the FATAL system (see below for more)
  
• Introduction of Super Meter
  

• The last DOA I played was DOA2. What's changed?
  Quite a lot actually...while at the same time, not a whole lot. Characters have changed and certain things like the windows for chain throws are shorter, but the basic RPS system along with the defensive-holds are the same. Loads of old notation for old moves have also been very much standardized. DOA4 introduced a very annoying stun based system where people could end up in stun for much longer and made the game slower, other than making the defensive player having more advantage with access to damaging defensive hold that took around 60-120 of the attacking opponent's life bar.
  
  In DOA5U6, even more things have been tweaked so that the engine is more akin to DOA2/3 which was fast paced but you also had plenty of damage potential with all characters.
  
  
  
• You telling me those Geese reversals are still in this game? No buy, homie.
  
  TN have tried to put less emphasis on holds in general by making characters unique while also making holds more punishable, especially low holds which have more recovery. Easy solution to punishing these is to just throw for high damage and dissuade your opponent from abusing it, especially when they're in stun where holds have more recovery.
  
  
  
• What's this whole thing about DOA wanting to be a tourney fighter?
  After the failure which was Ninja Gaiden 3 and with Itagaki gone, Team Ninja have started listening to competitive DOA players to make something that would at least resemble a competitive 3D fighter. Shimbori, the new designer of the series seems to be a level headed person and he himself is a self-described competitive player (despite not having played any other fighting game other than DOA). (DOA6 note: DOA5 lasted 6 years on the tourney scene but was never a headliner.)
  
  So far, the response has been good amongst the DOA community, but people outside the community don't seem to care much, but they're starting to warm up seeing as there are good turnouts at tournaments and people who play this game do have a lot of passion.
  
  
• I used to play [Insert Character Name] in DOA2. Is he/she still in?
  Leon and Ein have returned and Rachel has replaced Spartan. Alpha is playable but requires 300 titles to unlock (or a whole lot of online matches), but she's essentially the very weak Rugal of this game. Tengu is replaced by a new character called Nyo-Tengu (or Neo Tengu), which is a female Tengu anime lady, making her a middle weight version of Tengu and has inherited his moveset with some new tools and metagame. Kasumi-Alpha, which was a non-playable character in DOA2 and only playable in DOA Dimensions, is back as Phase-4 and has inherited most of Kasumi-Alpha's traits, but with some new set of tools to make her unique.
  
  DOA6 note: None of the guest characters from other franchises that were in 5 will be in 6 at launch, this includes: Mai(KOF), Jacky(VF), Sarah(VF), Akira(VF), Pai(VF), Naotora(DW). Team Ninja has not stated anything about DLC characters down the road.
  
  
• Is this game easy to get into?
  DOA is probably one of the most scrub-friendly fighting games out there along with games like Bloody Roar and...I don't know, Bloody Roar 2? Being a 3-button game like VF, it has much easier inputs, no just-frames (no true JFs anyway), simple 0-frame one button reversals for all attacks, universal high and low grabs, straight forward stun system and look at all them big 'murikan titties! Most strings have long delay windows, though this can be character dependent.
  
  The game mostly revolves around mindgames and matchups, rather than execution, which makes it welcoming to both casual players and other players who play DOA as a side game.
  
  What makes it different is that unlike Virtua Fighter, the stagger system, scaling and the holds differentiate it from other 3D games out there and there are multiple different types of stuns with different applications and an extra counter system called the Hi-Counter, which is when different element like throw, hold or strikes cancel each other out.
  
  
  
• How's the community for this game?
  Quite average, so you're bound to find some good people who play other games at a high level and some really terrible people, so basically your average FG community. The DOA community is also the one with the most casual players. The only good place you need to go for actual gameplay info would be FreeStepDodge and that still has a few terrible people which you can ignore. Matt "Mr. Wah" Ponton is the owner and he's a pretty cool guy. Other community websites you can just ignore.
  
  
  
• Offensive Hold? Catch Throw? What are these?
  The game is pretty similar to VF since the first game was based on the same engine, but there are a few noticeable differences when it comes to the fighting engine after years of branching out from each other.
  
  
• How is the online?
  Team Ninja have stated that for DOA6 "Online Matchmaking is a priority, and the they aim to make it amazing", 5's online was okay.
  
  
• The PC version of 5 was garbage
  Team Ninja has stated the PC version will be on parity with the console versions. If you're on the fence just wait for release, all of the preorder bonuses have a fairly generous purchase window.
  

BattleTech fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Jan 7, 2019

BattleTech fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jan 7, 2019

BattleTech fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jan 11, 2019