Whoa...
Things i believe in as of the beta...specifically the beta that gives about 240 undizzy, fast decay, and assist confirms that scale and assists that lockout:
Im against invincible assist confirms, specifically because though ill get flack for it, i do see current mde and sde sg as turtle updo/pillar fests where people (top players and intermediates) hide behind their assists and just let the assist do all the talking. I found it real bad once i started seeing people using assists to punish blocked point characters recovering moves. Rather than "risk" the opposing character canceling into super and punishing an attempted retaliation.
Though yes there are many drawbacks to that style of play such as punishing the assist, getting happy birthdayed for mashing the assist and guessing wrong on a high/low mixup and thusly having the assist come out in taunt and getting combod with the point character.
Many/most see lockout as a good way of solving that dilemma.. But i dont for one primary reason along with a few tertiary reasons:
Lockout locks out all assists, it locks out standing and crouching normal assists, it locks out non invincible special assists, it locks out armored assists, throw assists... Etc etc.
I see that as bad balancing since it is a nerf that nerfs so many other moves many of which are in no need of actual nerfing.
My solution to this has always been to make invincible startup assists much harder to confirm off of or impossible to confirm off of, with them giving recoverable bounce which would effectively take away any otg abilities and instead enforce mid air confirms which are much harder to do, or, my personal favorite which is to make them like fortunes fiber upper is as an assist, confirmable but you need to anticipate a hit and have proper spacing in order to confirm.
Its my belief that invincible assists that have no lockout, but give no confirm either (or superhard confirms), will increase neutral in one of the few good ways, are still going to be fully punishable and happy birthdayable, Will still give huge dividends via gtfo just like capcom assist in mvc2, will make damage and momentum more dynamic since invincible assists will start to be used more as pokes and thusly will randomize how much damage a character has taken before getting combod... (A character may get hit by updo between 1 and 4 times, realistically, before getting confirmed by an actual throw/crossup/cr.lk)
Gtfo assists with no confirm is still AMAZING. Like seriously amazing. And with no ability to confirm them, or making them super hard confirms, the startup frames of invulnerability could be taken away and the game would become smarter because the assists would always work for what they were intended for, but you dont get punished hard for running into one. The game would become faster, more dynamic, more buttons, more stuff and spam on screen, less turtly, less easy mode confirmy, more ability to call out obvious offense with a gtfo assist than what lockout gives us when we make a mistake..
It just gives so much more by giving less.
In turn, assists that DONT have any invincible frames, will by default, get better in the meta. Which will lead to actual choices such as picking hairball or updo, or picking updo or LNL or cerecopter.
Basically more "random" hits that dont give confirm (or "easy" confirm) yet are still powerful pokes in their own right, will open up sg to more neutral, more diversity in assists being used, more diversity in starting damage being done to a character before that character is confirmed, less need to shorten combos since pillar and updo spam will give pause to reckless offense, and make confirms riskier to go for, yet not as risky as they are currently.
I just see it as basically giving few to no drawbacks and all sorts of dividends.
One of my pet peeves is when people (such as myself, even) say that the answer to a question is "dont get hit" or stay out of range/be more defensive.
I mean i give the advice because it is GOOD advice at this stage of the game... But to me it is advice that hampers well rounded sg play. I dont like turtling, i do however turtle, but id like more ability for me AND MY OPPONENT to press buttons yet be relatively safe in many situations (like ST and mvc2) Not just space each other out (which reminds me of sf4)
Making invincible assists spammable, but have few on hit dividends besides damage for the move and gtfo...seems like a very good thing for sg in my mind.
And i still cant fathom why others dont think the same way... I mean, assuming that they want more neutral and more dynamic gameplay in general.
In the end my hypothesis is that sf4 has really really skewed peoples perceptions of what a good fighting game is and how a good fighting game should work.
The evidence for that in my mind is how high an amount of people, top players included whose answer for so many things is
"Bait it out"
Which is a high end sf4 truism, and while certainly not a bad thing, i dont see it as being a barometer of how a game should be designed.
Mvc2, the game that everyone uses as an example for how sg is designed, is actually one of the games out there where you can run around pressing attacking buttons all day and have not a whole lot happen..
And its one of the most popular fighting games of all time... I dont think thats a coincidence.
Its also the game where an invincible confirmable otg assist is on more than likely the best team in the entire game. And take that team and assist out of things and marvel becomes a highly neutral game with capcom assist and the like.. Out that team and assist in though and you have a team that can ocv you if it manages to get in... Much like sg is.
Tldr for the last part:
i would want sg designed after team scrub, or spiral teams or blackheart teams or even sentinel teams.
I think designing it after msp is a huge mistake though, and giving invincible assists otg confirms is basically making any team that runs updo or pillar, basically msp, if not in form, then definitely in function.