DoA5 changed the counter system which made it a bit more competitive minded. Previously, you could counter any attack with just three different inputs, high, mid and low. Because you had such a high chance of just wildly guessing the right counter to use, it was hard to get so called "guaranteed damage" out of combos, as you could be randomly countered at nearly all times.

Now, the game also splits the system into kick/punch as well as high/mid/low, so random guessing on a counter to use drops to 1/6th instead. Also, there are more stuns that you can't get out of with countering.

It's still pretty intuitive though, you just need to know if the next attack is a kick or a punch, in addition to its height. It's -> + block to counter mid kicks, and <- + block to counter mid punches. Iirc.