My point was that holds contribute to balancing the roster. It's evident just playing the game that it does. It was evident years ago when it did the same in the previous games. It's not my argument- it's KT's, they said the same thing about holds and roster balance while explaining the game on stream at NLBC this week. It's kind of weird how I'm getting so much pushback. I mean, you could just play the game and it's obvious. It's been in place in DOA games for decades. It's far from a controversial statement.
You're getting pushback because you're arguing something you clearly don't understand, and the appeal to authority using Team Ninja's statements doesn't change that. I've been playing the DOA games since the very first game hit the arcades, and during that time it's made it obvious that holds
don't result in an inherently balanced cast, or even a cast more balanced than a similar game without universal holds (say Virtua Fighter for example). The reasons for this
should be simple and obvious, and people here have been trying to detail these to you, but you've simply been reiterating that holds balance the game without providing any logical examples on why this would be the case in light of some character's holds being better than others. I'll try to illustrate the flaw in your logic with two very extreme (exaggerated) examples.
Firstly, let's imagine one character if they successful hold either a mid punch or a mid kick immediately does 100% damage to your character, meaning that a single successful hold on the most common attack level now wins them the round immediately. Would a different character that when they hold the same attack does 10% damage be balanced simply because both the described characters can hold any mid attacks? Obviously not, right? But your argument of holds automatically balancing the cast regardless of details should allow for this scenario to be balanced also.
Next, let's just imagine everyone has the exact same holds in all situations. Everyone when they hold any attack does 25% dmg to their opponent and leaves them in exactly the same neutral position. Surely the entire game would be balanced now right, because we've even taken away the natural differences between holds that actually exist in the real game. But no... what if a character has their only strong attacks all be mid-punch? When fighting this character, you'll probably land that 25% dmg hold far more frequently than they'll land the same on you, because more often than not you'd be able to simply opt to hold mid-punch and catch them the majority of the time, they on the other hand will probably end up deeper stunned and launched for half their life because your character can actually mix up their attack patterns to a decent extent.
The second example actually does have some parallel in a real fighter. Street Fighter III actually does have a true universal reversal mechanic, parrying. Everyone can parry just as well as everyone else, and yet other factors in the characters' movelists, and the options available to them after a successful parry see a few of the characters rise to the top of tier lists, whilst others are considered non-viable competitively. Hopefully this should illustrate that no one mechanic in isolation balances a roster. Even having the exact same tool for everyone has different effects due to everything else they're made up of. This shouldn't even be something anyone with even a basic understanding of fighting games (or games in general) should think to question... yet here we are.
Finally, if you want to take statements and design decisions of the development team as gospel, consider this: Itagaki previously stated that the Ninja characters in Dead or Alive were created to be the strongest characters in the game because... well... they're Ninja, and that's just how it should be. Now, this directly conflicts with the idea that the cast would be inherently balanced because the game has holds, because the game always had holds even back then. Secondly, when DOA3 initially released there was a lot of noise about Hayate basically breaking the game with his nigh-invincible cartwheel move. This was fixed in DOA3.1, but surely fixing this shouldn't have even been an issue, right? After all, everyone has holds, so it should all be fair and balanced because they could all just attempt to hold his attack once he was done dancing all around them.
If you decide to respond to this post, please address the points I have made directly, detailing why the logic I have given is flawed. Please don't just respond with something along the lines of "everyone can hold" or "Team Ninja says so". Please actually look at the situation critically, and provide an answer that shows your own understanding of the matter. Thanks.