A lot of characters, stages, strategies, and modes?
Never having a clear option. You’re always weighing out whats the best and sticking with it because your gut says so.
QFT
I agree that differing payoffs can make rock-paper-scissors a deeper game. That was what I was trying to say with the Super Turbo example, where throw < meaty -> super < your best punishment combo. I guess I wasn’t clear… 
All games have their share of advanced techniques/maneuvers/things that reflects the players potential?
Guess more of them the better
i dont know man, sounds like maybe your freinds just prefer titty fighter i mean doa, only real way to change their opinion is to let them actually learn something like super turbo and experience it theirselves.
something that is truely deep is difficult to put into words in the first place. it just is for a myriad of reasons.
casual gamers will just never get that.
then again you do have your fighting gamers that just play 3d games like vf or tekken only.
and that would bring the whole 2d vs 3d argument into play.
which is more like a arguement of which food you prefer which is pointless.
so i guess in short make them try super turbo/3s/kof98
and try and make them have a proper go at it. if they dont get it, they never will
and are inferior human beings 
yea on a side note game complexity dosnt neccisarly equal deepness.
as abundance of content does not always win over quality.
Anything SRK deems worthy of being such
So what does SRK look for when deciding a fighting game is deep or not?
as broken as marvel is, its incredibly deep because of the fact its broken. Till this day, people are still finding new things to the engine that will add to the depth of the gameplay.
There are shades of grey when it comes to a question like this because a game like ST is very deep but with a basic layout to its gameplay. A game like marvel is complex to begin with but no one fully understands the engine yet and its been 7 years going on 8. How many fighters give you an engine that can’t be broken down for the better part of a decade? and in 3 years when marvel reaches its 10 years of being out, I guarantee you people will still be finding things out about the engine and how to apply it to mid game strategy.
A deep game is one where you have access to a lot of real options as well as having interesting strategic decisions and mind games…
Though I think the definition could also be…
A game with layers upon layers of different stratagy – Theres a lot of room to dig for new useful techniques and tactics. Just like the term implies, you can dig continue digging and still find rewards in a ‘deep’ game, cause well… the rewards run ‘deep’… While for other games you might be able to dig up some stuff, but it doesn’t take very long for everything to be discovered.
Tiers
That’s it? Difference between characters is all it takes to make a deep fighting game? I always thought it would be more difficult than that.
A big whole.
There’s also those god wrenchingly annoying “execution heavy systems” (AKA parry in SF3) that only hardcores would pull off. There’s also in most cases “turtle fested” fighters. Not that it matters, most people would stick to to two or three characters (100% of those choices would be “speed” based anyway for quick jump-in combos).
To block, Hold X (free) or the back button. I know it’s stupid to say something that simple, but when I hear non-existent, I say wtf? Blocking in DOA gives the defending player the advantage since almost every move on block gives disadvantage, leading to free grabs or advantageous mixups. As well, will you guys please make up your mind on whether the countering system is “easy as hell” or “way too difficult!”. Heh.
ITT people that don’t know how to play a game, bash it because it’s the cool thing to do.
ALL fighting games reward the ability to read your opponent’s mind, but some 2d fighting games have diversity in the gameplay of each character that 3d games will never have.
it’s best if i give an example from my own personal experience so lets take guilty gear xx accent core for example:
not only you have a character that shoots pool balls and different angles and another character that is actually 2 characters at once, but you also need to play your character in a totally different way depending on the matchup.
i play eddie and vs testament i can’t pull out my shadow cuz he can kill it with ease. instead i have to navigate myself through his strong zoning and when i find an opening only then i can summon the shadow and try to break his defence and do as much damage as i can.
vs jam i always want the shadow out so i can zone her and keep her away from me. vs testament i was the chaser but now i’m the one trying to play keepaway!
vs baiken i can’t even rush down like eddie does best, instead i need to limit myself to jump cancelable attacks or try to bait her into using a baiken-reversal only when i can counter it hard…
vs venom i need to chase him down so i can get a chance to summon in his face and begin rape but unlike testament his zoning is different and vs him i can use 214s to return his balls right back at him. so he is trying to keep me out by sending more balls than i can return, and changing their speed so i’ll screw up the 214s timing…
so my point is that a player can be really good in 1 matchup but really suck at another matchup cuz it’s a totally different battle.
sadly this is something that 3d fighters don’t have and for me this is one of the aspects of “depth” in games.
This is the truth. Sadly, people dont seem to believe this is the case with doa4.
I think most people in general just play doa4 a few times, master the easy controls np, and then laugh at the one button counter system that does 1/3 life damage.
Its true that counters do too much damage, but as a person who has played fighters since 1992 (and against some of the best in the world) I see doa4 as one of the deepest fighters I have ever played.
Pick anyone in the states at any 2d game and I guarantee I can at least damage them or make them work for a round. When I play doa4 on xbox live though, there are people I can barely even touch. I mean, Iam hoping to take half their life bar. Somtimes I cant even move.
That counter button is overpowered but its puts a whole new dimension in the game by making absolutley everything counterable. You cant just spam 1-3 combos countinously with no risk of punishment, you cant take half their life off a patient c.short into super, and the timing of different moves in the game while understanding there is a counter button becomes insane at high lvls. Then add in the qcf throwing, throw counters, and throwing a person whose countering for extra damage…ehhh…all that with 3d side stepping tecchniques.
The whole rps thing is true. I just think doa4 is good model of this how rioting souls said depth should work for f-games.
the people who play it
Does anyone find it strange that one person says the counter system in DOA is “extremely difficult”, while another person says “1-button overpowered counter system”
It is a 4-way system. High, Mid-Punch, Mid-Kick, Low. It is active for 22 frames. The amount of damage of the counter is based on the timing. 1-4 being hi-counter (150%), 5-12 being counter (125%), and 13-22 being normal (100%). If you can pick between 4 things and do it within 4 frames before it hits you consistently, then that’s cool. That ain’t what defensive holds are for in actual gameplay.
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It stops string abuse. Strings are by far the easiest to defensive hold because of transitional animations, and knowing what the options are that come next. There are several string variants in general. Now, if they know it’s easy, they’ll start manipulating that. People will start poking more, timing their moves correctly, blocking, etc…
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Just “guessing” counters gets you absolutely no where. Pattern-based, sure. But deciphering patterns is… a skill maybe? Wouldn’t it be better most of the time to BLOCK? Situation: Your opponent does PP Mid Cancel. That mid is unsafe. You counter high. You’re now stunned. You block instead. You confirm the cancel and throw them for free.
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Another reason guessing counters gets you no where is simply because of the RPS system of the game. You counter, the opponent throws, that’s automatic 150% hi counter throw. They use their best grab, you’re losing 50%. Let’s say they react to the sound, there’s not even a way out of it and you’ve successfully screwed yourself for the round. Nice one. The guy is sitting there blocking, you counter, he hears the sound, he throws your ass or hits you in the recovery. When you counter you always have to keep that in mind.
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When stunned, the opponent can do certain throws safely in certain stuns without being hi counter blown (you won’t recover fast enough to). So now, the opponent doesn’t even need to do shit other then that if they know you’ll counter out of 90% of the stuns, because the other 10% of the time you’re screwed anyways.
Yes, you can get a random counter within those 22 frames, and you may be right 25% of the time IF the opponent does an attack, but it won’t even do as much damage. So you just risked getting stunned, or thrown for half your bar… for that Nice. The scenarios in which people think they can abuse this shit is by pure ignorance alone.
People need to look more into this kind of stuff, and not mindlessly bash something because it’s the in thing to do on a site.
Xdest, most SRK posters are idiots but then you’re coming from DoAC which is pretty much the same thing (except sometimes worse).
DoA is fine, but it lacks skillful application that other 3D fighters have. Also the stun system and hi-counter system reward way too much damage for rather basic yomi and execution. Most real (aka not SRK garbage) hardcore players see this, and hence why they do not play DoA. If you play other 3D fighting games seriously then you should see and understand the differences. Fighting meaningless wars with idiots on SRK doesn’t get you anywhere.
Well, I could probably argue with you all day about that, but I know it wouldn’t get me anywhere because we both have our own views on how it works. And I respect that.