You know, I really liked the abundance of meter option in XIII. The increased meter on block and such from arcade to home port, and the changes to make Neomax's more useful were all very nice to me.
I like the shifts here even more. We've lost a LOT of special cancelable far C's and Ds, but who cares? Most of them can be DM canceled now. In KoF, that's basically saying "You can follow up far pokes with EX moves". And pokes are a lot better now, with the return of some great normals that got the shaft previously.
Personally, I also like the confirm ranges for close weak normals in this game better than my time with SFIV. SF has this weird way of pushing back in a very "3D game" looking way that feel less "hitbox" precise, and more, "Hit sphere" like. XIV's seem to be much more predictable, in the way that one close crouch normal at point blank will always leave you at range for a standing close normal follow up. For someone like Mai, who needs that cl.LK to get into her Target combo, this makes the act of judging the distance feel much more reliable.
Moving on, with the fact that DMs can be followed up with Advance cancel, it gives a new relevance to using meter on simple Supers, rather than just saving it all for MAX mode spam, which was one of the early fears.
With the lessening of invincibility on DMs, it also seems like the idea is to make you confirm your punishes with a blow, rather than just tossing them out there. I like this, because it forces you to be more aware of the strengths of your buttons. And with buttons being strong, this is a nice pairing.
Using meter to capitalize on raw overheads was always a thing. Now the same bar can be used as a DM cancel, or MAX cancel for mixup, Guard break pressure, or just guaranteed damage. And then you have unique stuff like Nelson being able to straight up special move cancel his overhead, which is a nice way to add more life and utility to his limited "special moves".
This all makes it harder to 100% say what an opponent is fishing for when they start poking. You kinda knew Shen was going for a HD combo when he started doing all his stupid low kick spam; it was the only option that'd most would consider viable once he was sitting on resources. Here, you have many more possibilities, since the cost isn't so one sided in it's reward.
Regardless of how much the pro scene likes 2k2UM, I got much more tired of seeing Nameless in that game than I ever did of Mr. Karate, Flame Lori, or basically anyone in XIII. It just felt like such a smaller amount of the cast could really use meter as dynamically as he could. As if he was made for 2k2UM, and everyone else was just ported into it.
XIII was a step in the right direction, but as much as I like Drive Cancels, the meter eventually because something that limited the amount of game-winning damage many characters could get for the same resources. Especially since anywhere juggles that gave re-stand allowed some characters to get resources BACK after spending them, which was just nuts.
This game feels tighter in this regard so far. MAX cancels, straight DM/SDM combos, and SDM->CDM cancels all seem to give comparable damage, as long as you're spending similar meters. MAX for footsies and MAX for pressure all effect each character in differe ways. If a character shines with combo MAX mode, it's normally because they're a bit weaker in some other ways (Vice doesn't have the chip damage, or invul on throws she used to have, but has one of the better MAX combos, if she can get the opening, so far.) Shining with a max meter combo doesn't yield much different damage than doing normal combos into a DM, either.
Of course, we'll have to see if it stays that way. But for now, the rules in place to limit things look better than ever.
