Its a good strategy, I feel like another way to frame it is “make things grimier” i.e. give players a more continuous range of risk/reward options. Be a little dishonest for a little reward. Imo this is why the base size change in baseball was good, make steals a little easier cause they’re exciting

I kinda think this just happens in any sufficiently old game honestly, competitors will continually reduce uncertainty until either the governing body shakes things up or a crazy discovery happens.

The funny thing with old digital games though is they DO shake up, just look at rolling in Tetris!

This in turn reduces the decision space, deciding between resets/corner carry/ideal knockdown time is far less of a consideration. I'd liken it to fixed limit texas hold 'em, the "core" game is still basically the same but you lose a lot of the flavor that makes it really exciting

The discourse is kinda memes tbh but imo the core is risk tolerance's decreased relevancy in decision making. Input buffers make optimal combos easier making routing decisions straight forward and decrease the utility of "fake" strats/combos (like 1f tech windows in gg)

Also while I dont believe a new rule has been put into place yet, basketball is going through a small crisis because 3-pointers are way way more viable than they were originally supposed to be and breaks a lot of the mechanics and flow of the game

IIRC baseball had 3 big changes last year, two of them were for game speed but the 3rd added infield shift limits, because analytics teams were getting too good at shutting down batters. Dudes literally pull a card out that says where to optimally stand for each batter 💀

To your point though, combos being more accessible makes them a way less exciting part of the game ("player expression") and puts more of the game emphasis on RPS which flattens out over time. FWIW I think sf6 actually takes some good stabs at this by having lots of dynamic resources to consider

There's a lot to unpack with input windows, I think the tl;dr is just arcade vs console. Arcades you want maximum volatility to get more quarters, on console more streamlined experiences are desirable for DLC/sequels. We do see some of the difference in excitement comparing 3s at evo to other games.

Any limited effect is due more to the way FGs are played competitively (Bo3/5 for strive), though it also happens a lot less now as FGs introduce more lenient input buffers.

Feel like its worth saying sports have many recent (significant!) rule changes (patches??) to adjust for strategic dominance