To be honest, to make this a entertaining and competitive fighter, most of the mechanics will need to be redone. In all actuality, I haven't seen lateral movement be very useful at all at high level in this game. Stuns are stupid the way they are, the need to not be holdable, but to balance that, they need to reduce in number. Free step dodging from DOA3 needs to come back, the game is stupid without it, might as well be 2D. With mixups this fast, free-step dodging needs to work. Sidestepping (not Free Step Dodge) in general in this game is more of a pain than Virtua, yet, the mix-ups in this game come faster than Virtua. I just don't understand the set-up that they're going with. String delays make this even worse, and yet, somehow, with, outside of the hold, some of the worst defensive mechanics I've ever seen in 3D games (at least that I've played) versus some of the fiercest fast offense I've seen in 3D fighters, it just seems all bad.
To me, it seems like to be a solid addition to the fighting game community, this game will have to be re-worked on many many points. Defensive mechanics outside of the hold will have to be buffed to reach the level attained by current top tier offense.
For instance:
Evasion/Hold System (Which needs to be merged into one)
Game's moves divided into High, Vertical Mid, Horizontal Mid, Low.
High Moves would be able to be ducked, and high countered.
Low moves would be able to be jumped, and low countered.
Vertical Mids (Like Launchers) would be able to be sidestepped, and would either have MP counter or MK counter.
Horizontal Mids would not be able to be sidestepped, ducked, or jumped, but would do solid damage, be very unsafe (or negative on hit), and would not stun.
Of course, I'd want them to add a less annoying sidestep command in an alternate scheme. Like VF's/SC's, or increase the startup.
The point of this would be to make it so, while powerful, the defense is about gaining MOMENTUM, not damage. Also, make it so when a move is successfully evaded, the rest of the string doesn't track, or give universal crush on successful sidestep, to make the defender block instead of completing his string. I vote for universal crush to avoid hitbox issues.
Stun System
Reduce number of stunning moves in the game. Disallow being able to hold out of the
first move you are hit with in the stun sequence. (To encourage Stun-Launcher/Stun-Heavy setups), make sure all characters have a launcher or knockdown-grab, or something useful like this to use out of the stun setups. This would allow guaranteed combos without anything stupid entering the game. Since this game needs to be balanced without meter, I'd find this helpful.
String Delays
People should have to commit on offense just like everyone must commit on defense. Blow this universal string delay garbage up, please.
General Unsafety of the Game
Many defensive and offensive mechanics are not very useful because of everything being unsafe. Every character should have at least a small list of safe moves to work with, especially in a game that, with these changes, would rely on movement to quite a degree.
Free Step Dodge
Needs to be useful again. At least should be able to dodge linear mids.
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As far as I'm concerned, this is likely the very minimum of things that may need to be corrected. Feel free to disagree, just tell somebody why. lol