Introduction
The way the stages affect characters and how they fight is one of the things that seperates Dead or Alive 4 from most other fighting games. Being aware of what the stage itself can do (in terms of damage and effects) is rather important when it comes to maximizing
Enviromental Hazards
Walls and Ropes
Walls are probably the enviromental hazard that come into play the most. There are multiple ways to hit a wall:
- You can glance off of walls, which happens when you are sent into the wall at a small angle (relative to the normal of the wall surface). When this happens, you take damage from hitting the wall, bounce off the wall, and land on the ground as if you were normally hit to the ground. This ground hit is techable.
- You can go splat against the wall, which happens when you are sent straight into into the wall during an air juggle, back-turned state, or from a wall stagger. You will take normal wall damage and slide down the wall (this animation is untechable and you can not be hit out of it), and your |only option is to get up. You can either get up straight, to your left, or to your right.
- You can hit the wall and stagger off of it (known as a wall stagger), which happens when you are hit into a wall straight-on (either in neutral, counter-hit out of a move, or during a critical stun). You will take damage, and then come off the wall in a normal-hit stun, with one exception -- the damage scaling of the ensuing air juggle (if any) is based off of the initial hit of the entire combo.
- On D.W.A. Coliseum and Tritower Heliport, if you hit the ropes in the stage straight-on from more than a certain distance (may be two meters) and would otherwise end up in a wall stagger, you will bounce off the ropes instead of getting the normal wall stun. This is more dangerous than a normal wall stagger for two reasons. The first is that since you are so far away from the wall, launchers that would normally cause a wall splat (due to proximity to the wall) will now launch instead, which allows for combos that would not be possible from a wall stagger. The other reason is that since the stun travels so much more distance, people can freewalk behind you as you come off the wall and can attempt back-turned stun combos.
There are also special moves and throws that are only possible when either you or your opponent are next to the wall.
Only certain moves will send opponents into wall-related stuns -- and each of these moves has a maximum effective range, and some of them only work if the opponent is in a special stage (critical stun, air juggle, or counter-hit). The specifics for a character can be found on the move list on their corresponding move list.
Ceilings
Certain stages (such as the inside of Ninja Hideout and parts of Seaside Market) feature low ceilings -- low enough so that ultra-high launchers (such as Ayane's mid-kick counter and Eliot's 236P+G launch throw -- and some launchers that normally do not launch that high, like Spartan-458's 236P) will cause people to hit the ceiling. This impact with the ceiling does damage, and also induces a critical stun once they hit the ground. It is the player's decision to either take the guaranteed damage as they come down from the ceiling, or to take the implied damage from an extended combo and relaunch from the induced ground stun (that their opponent may escape out of).
Slopes
Slopes are not a hazard in the normal sense, but they can affect a fight. It seems fairly obvious, but given height differences and foot stances, certain moves (ie: a lot of highs when your opponent is below you) will completely miss (as they will go over their heads). Combos are also affected by slopes; it is generally easier to juggle people down slopes and harder to juggle up slopes.
Slopes will not change the hit property of a move (a mid kick will not hit high because it's hitting higher due to a slope).
There are slopes people take damage from hitting, but these are only after cliffs and people never actually fight on them.
Edges and Cliffs
Edges and cliffs are points on the stage where if people are hit in such a way that they would have hit a wall (if one existed there), they instead go sailing down the cliff. This causes the player hit to go into some goofy falling animation as the other player jumps after to chase, and the game continues at the lower level.
Some edges are preceded by a slope which does additional damage prior to the drop-off. The damage done is dependent on the length of the slope, but is constant for a slope (the angle that they fall off does not affect where they start falling down the slope or how fast they go, oddly enough).
Falling over an edge or off a cliff will never knock out a player -- if the ensuing fall would bring them to zero or less health, their damage is clipped so that it leaves the opponent with exactly one point of health left. This can lead to falls doing exactly one point of damage.
Partitions (Big and Small)
Partitions are functionally like walls except that characters go flying over them when they hit them (instead of bouncing off), and characters can jump over them if they are in the way. Characters who hit a partition flip over the partition and end up in a critical stun on the ground (they can not tech, but they can use any method you can normally escape stuns to escape).
When a character valuts over a partition (to give chase to an opponent hit over it or just because it is in the way), they can elect to do a jumping punch or jumping kick attack (the properties are character-specific), or no attack at all. Be careful when going over barriers when the enemy is not stunned, as you can get hit out of the valut rather easily (which almost always sends you back over the barrier).
The difference between a big partition and a small one is that it is impossible to initiate an attack off of a small partition when valuting over it. Characters that bounce off small partitions take a slightly different trajectory when in flight (they pop up higher and land closer).
Big Heavy Moving Objects (Cars, Cheetahs, Dinosaurs, etc.)
These are big moving objects in stages that have their own behavior. Cars (on Gambler's Paradise) typically try to get out of the way of players, while the cheetah (on Savvanah Safari) will lie in the background randomly targeting players. The pterodactyl (on Experimental Playground) flies by the lakeshore every so often regardless of where the characters are on the stage.
You can hit these objects in two ways: glancing blows and full impacts. A glancing blow is when the object barely hits the characters, and induses a spin stun while doing damage. A full impact sends the character hit into the air while doing a set amount of damage (usually 30). These impacts can be used as relaunches if you manage to hit someone into a moving hazard in the middle of an air juggle. In extreme situtations on Gambler's Paradise, you can do multiple relaunches off of the cars -- yikes!
These hazards are avoidable for characters in a neutral state, however. If you are attempting a defensive hold when the object hits you, you will dodge it. The actual dodges are character-specific and have their own (mostly unknown) properties.
On stages that have these hazards they can be turned off by hitting the Y button at the stage select screen (doing this on random select will disable them on a stage if an applicable stage comes up).
Breakable Objects
These operate exactly like normal walls, except they can only be hit once -- once someone hits them, they are taken out of play (by falling over or shattering) and can no longer be hit.
Charged Floors
Charged floors are exactly like normal floors, except that they do additional damage whenever characters are forced onto the floor. There are no additional properties of charged floors (unlike in DoA1).
List of Enviromental Hazards
Full list of hazards provided by NinjaFish and the offical DoA Strategy Guide (Japanese).
Savannah Safari
Upper Plateau
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Fall | 20 | Fall | |
| Short Slope to Drop | 30+20 | Fall | |
| Plateau Rocks | 10 | Wall | |
| Cheetah | 30 | Moving |
Lower Oasis
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Hippo | 10 | Partition | |
| Stampede | 10 | Wall | |
| Cave Wall | 10 | Wall |
The Crush Club
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Wall | 20 | Wall | |
| Floor | 10 | Floor |
Waterfall Valley
Rope Bridge
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Fall Through Hole | 40 | Fall | |
| Fall Over Rope | 10+40 | Fall | |
| Rope | 10 | Wall |
Stream Area
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Rocks | 10 | Wall | |
| Log | 10 | Partition |
DOATEC Great Hall
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Stairs | 43 | Slope | |
| Over Railing to Stairs | 10+47 | Slope | |
| Window | 10+20 | Fall | |
| Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Vase | 10 | Breakable | |
| Table | 10~20 | Partition |
Kyoto in Bloom
Above Canal
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Fall to Canal | 20 | Fall | |
| Fall to Canal Over Rail | 10+20 | Fall | |
| Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Lanterns | 20 | Wall | |
| Rope Barricade | 20 | Wall | |
| Cart | 20 | Wall | |
| Short Table | 10~20 | Low Partition | |
| Fence | 10~20 | Partition |
Canal
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Canal Wall | 10 | Wall |
Experimental Playground
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Triceratops | 10 | Wall | |
| Raptor | 10 | Partition | |
| Log | 10 | Partition | |
| Pterodactyl | 30 | Moving |
Ninja Hideout
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Fall w/Bounce | 20+20 | Fall | |
| Fall Over Rail w/Bounce | 10+20+20 | Fall | |
| Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Ceiling | 10 | Ceiling | |
| Breakaway Wall | 20 | Breakable | |
| Spinning Wall | 10 | Damage |
The D.W.A. Coliseum
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Corner | 10 | Wall | |
| Rope Bounce | 10 | Rope | |
| Rope Burst | 10 | Wall |
Tritower Heliport
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Wires | 20 | Wall |
Temple on the Mountain
Top Level
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Upper Stairs | 32 | Slope | |
| Upper Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Vase | 10 | Breakable |
Middle Level
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Middle Stairs | 34 | Slope | |
| Middle Wall | 10 | Wall |
Lower Level
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Lower Stairs | 36 | Slope | |
| Monkey Roof Bounce | 10+20+20 | Fall | |
| Lower Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Breakaway Wall to Temple | 10+30 | Fall | |
| Bridge Railing | 10 | Wall | |
| Monkey Poo | 10 | Moving |
Inner Temple
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Temple Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Gong | 10 | Wall |
Seaside Market
Market
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Stairs | 58 | Slope/Fall | |
| Fall | 10+20+20 | Fall | |
| Wall | 10 | Wall | |
| Ceiling | 10 | Ceiling | |
| Iron Railing | 10 | Partition | |
| Table | 10 | Partition | |
| Fruit Crate | 20 | Breakable | |
| Other Crates | 10 | Wall |
Beach
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Beach Chair | 10 | Low Partition |
Gambler's Paradise
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Iron Fence | 10 | Wall | |
| Center Partition | 10 | Partition | |
| Scrolling Marquee | 20 | Partition | |
| Car | 30 | Moving |
Biolab Core
| Hazard | Damage | Type | |
| Wall | 20 | Wall | |
| Floor | 10 | Floor |