this mechanic remind me alot the submission system in EA SPORTS UFC. (I was ranked 5th on ps4)

The flaw with this "gate" system was that if you manage to find the sweet spot between 2 gates (let's say UP is 12 o'clock and right is 3 oclock) you could move the RS stick to 1:30 and spam it fast . You could defend both sides.

The solution would be to cancel the defense if the stick was moving between 1 and 2 o'clock ..... Something like a dead zone

I hope you understand what I want to say. I will try to make a video on my ps4 with UFC .....

The game looks great. Day1 preorder etc for me