The biggest change I can see is hard knockdowns only occur after rev blows or supers. This means the game is more fluid, there’s more back and forth. A lot of safe jumps after rev arts /ex moves have been eliminated.  This seems good, so far, now I wonder why hard knockdowns are allowed after supers, is it for dramatic effect?

Kain got the nerf hammer while Hokutomaru seems a little balanced out. Looking across the patch notes, there seems to be a lot of spacing changes with pushback but then other characters like Andy will pull the opponent closer. It’s not clear yet what the battle designer is aiming for.

Some comment that the game is overall slower but I did not see any evidence of this while watching the new character Jae Hoon employ his high low feint throw mix-up game.

We watched a few matches on stream and it’s certainly hard to discern any impact to Rock Howard and Hotaru.

So it’s too early to make a conclusion but I like changes now  let me tell you why game publishers hate them.

Tldr video

Every time there is a balance change, a published guide goes into the bin. A youtube video becomes obsolete and subject to “that doesn’t work” or less polite comments with some less understanding people barking at content creators to update their material or even downvoting the resource. Every interview becomes nonsense and every statement looks like a backtrack. Finally, the player who has trained for maybe a year, has to retrain their muscle memory or completely start again.

On the flip side, balance changes are absolutely necessary for the longevity of the game, so players and spectators can enjoy a variety of characters. The opinion of spectators, and the tournament players they are watching, is especially important because they get top tier fatigue, and then drop the game.

On the other hand, some games have not had balance changes and remained classics, although arguably cult classics, 3S, Smash, HNK, while others have had changes to please the players, and still faded away. For every developer who put the protags and antagonists at the top end of the table, in terms of story, have every right to do so, it makes sense, but it’s not as much fun for the player who likes using the side character. So what’s more important? Pleasing the players or pleasing the audience? Content Creators are F’d either way.