If Capcom attends to only one thing with their next Street Fighter 5 balance patch, my hope is they'll further reevaluate problem V-Triggers
I find myself these days routinely stating just how far Street Fighter 5 has come in terms of general game balance, but that's because it truly has made leaps and bounds from the days of heavy input lag, throw loops, anti-air jabs, and some of the nightmarishly strong past versions of characters.
While there surely are still clear areas that could use some tidying up when it comes to making gameplay feel like it offers more reward for skill than luck, I think the most efficient avenue for change that players would almost immediately appreciate would be none other than the game's comeback mechanic: V-Triggers.
Comeback mechanics have a tendency to have nuclear bomb type force in a setting that otherwise calls for more nuanced detail. You get your high-flying and hair-raising dramatic comeback potential that serves to keep things interesting to the end, but this quickly backfires if a character's biggest guns too heavily eclipse the rest of the round's goings on.
Much to their credit, Capcom has already done a lot of appropriate tweaking here with universal damage reductions on activation combos and individual character alterations, but a few fighters still stand out with Triggers that tend to sap the fun out of the experience for most everyone else.
Considering how incredibly integral this mechanic has proven to be when it comes to a fighter's overall strength in Street Fighter 5, fine tuning in this department would likely have the most efficient effects on game balance as a whole.
Akuma, G, and Kolin have three of the absolute strongest Triggers in all of SF5. It might be a bit late in the game to reconstruct integral character moves and approaches, so simply reducing their effectiveness is likely the best approach.
Kolin's Absolute Zero is very consistently brought up in almost all conversations pertaining to the character, and while the benefits of the Trigger (longer reach, insane and sudden movement/attack options) are clearly good, Kolin hasn't exactly been winning every tournament she's represented in.
The frosty fighter's VT2 is demoralizing for sure, but she still seems to fall into a "good, but not broken" category and thus probably needs this kind of boost to remain relevant. Instead of nerfing the Trigger's properties I'd just like to see Capcom give it a three bar requirement and call it a day.
We saw this work extremely well for the issues we had with Menat back in Season 3, and I suspect this might be all the change needed to make this
G's V-Trigger 1 has been leaving players feeling robbed for a good two years now and Capcom hasn't done much at all to attend to this. Like Kolin, G isn't exactly running too rampantly at tournaments, so perhaps that's evidence enough to say that he's not broken as a character overall.
I think developers should make the cost of each of G's Maximum President actions consume more meter so he doesn't get as many "just do it and hope for the best" opportunities. To make up for this, perhaps Capcom should give the character a few buffs in other areas so he can maintain his status as a powerful contender while feeling more fair for those he's contending with.
As it stands now, G can use Max President to make up to five low rush punches safe. I think he should get more like two (we do live in a world where Vega gets just one rose with his V-Trigger, after all) so that he's aiming to melt closer to half a life bar instead of a full one in a single go.
Akuma's first V-Trigger, Dohatsu Shoten, is the other big stand out for me here. Thank goodness developers made it so that he can no longer activate from a whiffed fireball in the last patch, but the best character in the game still doesn't need a Trigger this powerful.
He gains access to a meter-less invincible DP, tacks on a boatload of damage to his already useful combos, and gets outstanding oki pressure following this damage. Akuma already moves in highly efficient and evasive ways (wonky demon flip angles, air fireball shenanigans, side switches in his bread and butter combos) but garners a double air fireball with VT1 for even more favorable chaos.
He can be the best character in the game, sure, but let's not give him this much of an advantage. Reduce some damage, reduce some stun output, and/or make his actions more costly with regards to how much gauge they consume. Again, follow the theme of "don't change identity, but tone down."
There are a few other characters who one could make arguments for in this same arena, some of whom don't really boast other significant strengths. Those who depend on their Triggers as a major pillar of their game plan are going to be hard relativity to readjust, but you lose a lot when your audience routinely feels robbed after playing an otherwise thoughtful and honest round.
Reducing such powerful tools will surely give a little more breathing room to lower tier characters as they'll innately climb the hierarchy a bit as a result, and I think this kind of approach would resonate with fans on a fairly immediate and emotional level.
