As someone who didn't start playing seriously until SF4, I was always a little fearful of SFV because it meant the end of SF4. The first beta changed my mind. I found my long time character very fun to play(Ryu obviously) and I found the other characters pretty challenging as well since they seemed to have strong tools themselves. I thought this was the base game and the nerfs or buffs would be minor from this point forward. Since then it's been nerf city and hasn't stopped since then.
I'm really afraid that this is the final direction of the game until release. Speaking for Ryu only, I don't understand what they're doing to him. He doesn't have reliable hit confirms unless you're point blank with your opponent. I could live with that if he hit harder but he doesn't. His damage for normals and specials are either equal or less than what you get in SF4(mostly less though). So I have to try and fight other characters with a low forward that has less range, does less damage, and when canceled into fireball is very unsafe unless spaced near max range.
They want players to commit, but we're committing without the reward. No hit confirms(unless point blank), no oki, no stun, no damage(please don't bring up how confirming into Super is so good). Ok so I have no idea how other characters play and they may still be pretty good, this is just the rant of a long time Ryu player. I had to get all that out of my system. I'm probably going to buy SFV no matter what but I'm going to do it with a bitter taste in my mouth if the final version of the game is close to what we have right now.
Well their was one good thing I guess. Ryu seems to walk faster so pressuring with st. LK was kind of fun. I tried spamming that as much as possible because everybody is always hitting buttons so it was fun to see it land as a counter hit 3-4 times in a row.
