It’s a touchy subject but since I’m like the only that suggested it in this forum (even though I never thought that it would happen) I’ll give the reasons why I myself think the way I do:
1.sf5 is not sf4 or sf2 or sf3, the game mechanics are very different and most things though not all, have been nerfed from previous iteration of the series:
Command grabs are no longer 0 frames and have less range than usual.
Throws have been slowed down and have less range
Jabs/weak attacks have been nerfed for comboability with them not usually linking into mediums nor usually having weak attack x3 confirms
Reversals as a whole have been nerfed by making most of them use meter and only being able to store 3 meters (as opposed to sf4’s 4 meters)
And a whole slew of other things that have changed in this game, while meterless reversals have stayed basically the same outside of getting crunch countered.
- Baiting reversals in this game isn’t just harder than in other games, you simply have way fewer options to do it. In sf4 as an example you could get point blank up to your opponent on a hard knockdown and then backdash at the last instant and make their DP wiff and get a full punish on them. This was a very ambiguous bait and you generally lost nothing for doing it. If the opponent didn’t take the bait, well you lost a bit of momentum, but that’s it. This was a very ambiguous type of bait and it really kept reversals in check even when people would fade them since the reversal would wiff. In sf5 however this type of bait is generally unavailable against quickrise because of the nature of quickrise, it leaves you at +2 to -4 on most moves. That means to bait you have to actually have to block the opponents reversal and that is risky. The opponent could just grab you since you have to be point blank to make anyone scared, or they could jab and then throw you. These are 2 options that you never really had to deal with in the streetfighter series if you played the oki game right.
But now, you DO have to deal with the opponent having those defensive options ON TOP of no longer having huge hard knockdown frame advantage to work with. This makes reversals exceptionally strong in this game because of how non ambiguous the attacking characters position is.
- The meterless reversal characters as a group save for ken were all saving to super exceptionally easy with little to no downside for the effort. They had good damaging meterless combos and super damaging metered combos on top of the meterless reversal.
- Crush counters to do big damage to reversals is nowhere near the “nerf” to reversals that people say it is. That’s just those people drinking the koolaid and not understanding the sf5 system mechanics. in most street fighters if you wiff a reversal you will get hit by a combo that does around 25% damage up to 75% damage depending on meter and positioning but no meter will usually be like 25% for most top and mid tier.
In sf5 if you have no meter your “punish” is puny. We are talking about like around 110-200 damage meterless depending on character. 200 damage isn’t even 25% life against a 900 hp character.
So to balance sf5’s damage scaling and system mechanic issues they made it so that all invincible non CA moves go into crush counter state so that most characters can do around 200 damage meterless up to around 300 damage or so for a meter for a punish. This makes it feel like “normal” damage when punishing reversals.
Remember, in this game when you punish something you generally don’t get a good attacking position for it afterwards. So the damage is mostly all you get. Whereas in old school game you take at least 25% meterless (usually more) or you get put into a nasty mixup situation that can lose you the game. Neither of these apply really to sf5 without CC so it really needed to have the CC mechanic added to reversals.
Think about a game where it’s unsafe to bait dps, punishing them gives you little damage, you don’t get a decent mixup for a punish, and offense is very turn based because pressure is hard to come by because weak attacks and confirms push you out of throw mixup/frame trap range. That’s what the game would look like with fully meterless reversals and no CC on block.
5. Burst damage is a lot more viable and important in sf5 because of the lack of vortex style mixups. So being able to save to a super very easily is a huge advantage. That advantage is most easily accessed by characters that have no reversal to spend meter on (and that’s a huge weakness to have that strength) and characters that get a reversal for no meter of course have all the awesome benefits.
It’s for these general reasons that meterless reversals had to go. As it is though I think that capcom implementation is terrible. DP’s should never get stuffed by jump in attacks. Not only that but meterless reversals still work against gap offense and since there like no tight blockstrings, they are still an excellent reversal.
Implemented correctly I would have made meterless reversals totally invincible to all jump attacks and totally not invincible to any ground attacks. I would have made ex reversals invincible to everything with slightly more damage to boot.
Having said all that, I personally would totally welcome meterless reversals to come back with open arms if hard knockdowns were put back into the game… which will never happen.
Or if that couldn’t happen then I’d like to see backrise taken out or quickrise be made around +10 after the dash so that dp could realistically be baited without putting the attacker in range for being counter thrown or wake up jabbed.
But more would actually need to be done, but oh well.