Hiku said:
Red Focus was one of the new mechanics that were added, but I'll get to delayed wakeup further below.
I want to address how you said that Red Focus didn't change the match up or the way the game was played because "it's just an upgraded version of an older mechanic."
My main character was Yun. And if you're familiar with SF4 you'll know that he previously had no simple way of comboing into his Ultra attacks. He could do Ultra 1 after Geneijin in the corner, but Geneijin eats up the entire super bar, and it scales horribly. But that's another important factor here. After Ultra released, basically no one used Geneijin any more. It used to be something you saw in every single Yun match, but I think Kazunoko used it once in Capcom Cup and the crowd lost their minds, becaus they hadn't seen it in so long.
Anyway, because saving up bar to use Ganeijin was no longer optimal, I now approached matches very differently. I could spend meter for EX lunge punch much more often, to get in on my opponent, and not worry that I lost my comeback trump card, because Red Focus only costs 2 bars, not 4. Same thing for EX command grab. This made Yun an even more aggressive character who could use more of his strong tools, more often. And as long as you had enough bar to build up to that second bar, you had the comeback factor ready to turn the tide.
While previously you had to slow down and hold back a lot in order be explosive with Yun, you were now encouraged to use his stronger tools more frequently and be more aggressive, while still having easy access to explosive damage.
As for the second mechanic, delayed wakeup, it changed a large portion of the meta for the entire cast, but vortex characters were affected the most. Safe jump setups that previously led into another knockdown or at least left you safe, or in a position that would lead into another mixup could now be risky to do.
Before Ultra, matches often resulted in being a "1 player game" (Not as bad as Marvel 3 though) where one knockdown could lead into your death, because you'd be forced into a situation where you have to guess correctly over and over. And because of option selects, the odds were often worse than 50/50.
Pre-Ultra, it often favored the attacker heavily. Adding this defensive option changed the pacing of the game in that the attackers had less options to force you into an endless guessing game, and you had more options to escape such situations and return the game back to a neutral state.
On top of these things, there were also balance changes to the roster, and that changed some matchups as well.
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Your example doesn't really debunk what I said because you've given examples of added options the actual match ups, fundamentals and such themselves never really changed as for one Yun was always an aggressive character in IV he was one of the major problems for players to deal with, my characters were Rose and Makoto the changes never impacted how I played and approached the game with them even though the were more options in games as I still had to approach the game in the same fundamental manner. The changes you're highlighting merely made it so certain moves were encouraged to be used more they or restraint in certain situations was added it didn't change the dna of the game how ever.
The same goes for delayed wake up it was added because SFIV had a flaw in approach that made vortex play strong once it began so it was added as a balance measure because characters with poor wake up/escape options wouldn't auto lose once it started, this how ever was not a fundamental change as people still played and approach the game the same it was a balance fix.
Compare this to what Truck is pointing out in Ultimate, defending diminishes quickly with each use and actions like rolls are now punishable this means fundamentally everyone in Ultimate universally has to come out and attack regardless of the match up, situation and style your example of RF and DW in SFIV doesn't do this for everyone what it does is add options with in the same fundamental ecosystem. The other added changes in Ultimate further change the universal fundamentals in Ultimate like the change to perfect shielding means defence in the game is no longer about avoiding and blocking damage you have to deflect a hit then set yourself up to apply counter aggression to turn the tides otherwise you'll get run over as the match is faster and its easier to die.
Compare this to S4 where someone could roll safely endlessly it meant the attacking player was most at risk which is why Rosalina was so strong in the game as the game was about neutral control and the strong defensive options made it hard to kill a character.
