(You're still ignored, but you've been better lately, surprisingly.)
I'm terrible at reading between the lines for changes that you make so I'm wondering why this upback buff is being tested out and may eventually be in the retail? Was it to fix something specific or just to make the gameplay more to your vision?
I come from MvC2 and older versus games, where upback is extremely powerful. You just go into the air and in some cases can't even be hit low - Sentinel can upback a meaty cr.RH from Magneto that is overlapping him as he wakes up.
The goal of going into preblock in SG when grounded vs close attacks is to make upback less good in that situation by allowing you to get hit low instead of jumping, which it does. Vanilla SG didn't have that.
The side effect of having you not jump at all when up-backing vs a jump-in is not entirely desired, and makes characters feel more sluggish in that situation, plus removes reactionary jumping moves as viable antiairs. It also doesn't help anything since you aren't being hit low by a jumpin. (IDGAF if you were using charging j.HP + low assist, that's DEFINITELY not intended.)
The additional effect of getting pasted for upbacking vs projectiles/assists/far normals is also definitely not intended, since in most cases up-back would be blocking high if you were to go into preblock. I class this as a bug. MvC2 has you go into preblock if anything is active anywhere on the screen, which is annoying but prevents this bug. Heh.
The fix is being tested now because I didn't have the tech to be able to distinguish the situations where I didn't want you stuck to the ground before.
So the current experiment:
- Doesn't allow you to block anything NEW that you wouldn't have blocked before, much as you want to believe it does - you still get hit by lows when up-backing. This is a major one and is the reason preblock works the way it did/does vs ground attacks, and is why I see a lot of this strange theory fighting as bunk.
- Still doesn't let you simply chicken-block to escape ground strings since you stay grounded.
- Doesn't get you hit by random things by preforming an input that normally blocks when outside preblock range (this counts as a bugfix, whether or nor that bug became a tactic).
- Allows you to chicken-block vs air, which both makes character movement FEEL better and additionally weakens instant overheads and repeated IAD pressure. All of which is fine with me.
In summary, up-back doesn't actually become a stronger tactic in most cases, if you know they're doing it then up-back still loses 100% to a low which will get you a full combo afterward. It makes up-back a more attractive guess, but in turn that's just gonna get you hit low more often. It may even prevent your opponent from randomly jumping around as the go-to tactic quite so much. Which I'm fine with too.
To put that another way - MvC2 is THE game in which up-back is the most powerful I have ever seen it, preblock doesn't stick you to the ground and sometimes you CAN'T be hit low cuz you go straight to airblock with no prejump animation...and Sentinel flying is the best tactic in the game, followed by Magneto and Storm trijumps. I don't think there's better evidence I can provide to indicate that up-back being good doesn't eliminate the usefulness of air attacks. SG even gets you hit by lows 100% of the time. :^)