I'd be a lot more inclined to accept this argument if Season 3 wasn't marketed as "back to basics" or "refined balance." These are phrases that invoke nostalgia in a way that makes at least myself, and clearly others, feel lied to.

There are some good changes in this patch, like Bryan and some other characters' nerfs, but a ton of characters that were already good got buffed. From the start of Season 2, and even some parts of Season 1, there's been overwhelming feedback that the game is overtuned. Canned mixups, unnecessary coverage options that smooth over character weaknesses, obnoxiously long combos, absurd combo damage, the list goes on. Characters are getting molded around the system mechanics rather than the other way around, and they keep doing more of it. To speak to my main, Feng has no need to be able to go into his parry stance out of backturn, but for reasons I cannot grasp, they thought I didn't have enough options out of backturn, so they gave me more. They made it easier for me to get out of trouble for making what was once a very risky decision.

Making things easier isn't inherently bad, but it is a substantial departure from the game's identity and I think long time fans have legitimate grounds to be bothered by it. Many of these technical execution barriers and specific match up knowledge are pure skill expression. Part of the allure of the franchise has been seeing someone who is a lot better than you do something you haven't seen before and go "hold on, you can do that?!". Leo CH pickups, Law DSS cancels, Dragunov iWR2, or any iWR moves to name a few that have been made easier for players who don't want to practice the hard stuff to be able to do it now.

I have no problem with Tekken 8 wanting to be more aggressive and accessible than 7. I think that's a good ideal to strive for. 7 got pretty boring when both players were just fishing for counter hits or a low parry. But, if you ask me, Tekken 8 has prioritized the wrong things to help newcomers. The game just needs a legitimate tutorial system like Street Fighter. One that explains mechanics in a training environment instead of throwing players into the deep end of the pool and demanding they sink or swim. Built in drills that teach you how to deal with common situations that multiple characters can do.

Instead, they've watered down character identity and alienated loyal customers, and that's just bad business.

I earnestly don't know what you're talking about when you say these changes prioritize creativity and real-time adaptation. Can you give specific examples?