Drive Impact
There's been a lot of discussion online about Drive Impact, a 26 frame armored mid that is safe on block and crumples if it hits the opponent as a punish counter (for example, because it absorbed a slow enough move). I think this tool is really excellent for a lot of obvious (and perhaps not so obvious) reasons, and I don't think they should change it for launch.
First of all, there are numerous counters to DI. You can jump it, throw it, super through it, hit it 3 times, block it midscreen and be meter positive vs your opponent, parry it, and the most important counter, use your own DI on reaction (even if your opponent absorbed a cancelable normal, you can still cancel into DI as a punish). This technique is not like focus attack or other mechanics where you can mind game people with fake outs, like dash canceling. DI is a hard commitment where, outside of blocking midscreen, either the offense or the defense is about to get smoked. You can, and will, train yourself to respond to this with canned reactions in the vast majority of situations, if you're mentally prepared. Do not use day 1 of a beta as any indication of what can and will be reacted to once players are comfortable in the system and have had time to practice.
I also want to stress just how bad it is to get your drive impact countered by a drive impact. You will lose 1 drive bar for trying your own DI in the first place, then 1 bar for being hit by a DI and 0.5 more for a DI hitting as punish counter (this is a move-specific value; some moves do more or less drive damage on punish counter). Plus, you will be crumpled for any combo of your opponent's choice, which should be minimum 30% damage. So you will be down minimum 2.5 drive gauge (more if they use super), 30% damage (more if they burn resources), and likely cornered where you will be forced to block out pressure for even more drive loss. This is serious punishment for testing your opponent's reactions and being wrong; in many cases, it will be a round-ending mistake. Keep this risk/reward in mind as you think about the move.
Drive Impact's goal is to reduce auto-pilot behavior in footsies and contain some of the stronger moves in the game, and it accomplishes it very well. DI beats strong non-cancelable footsies pokes, buffers like low forward xx special, full screen control moves (like Luke's charged H Knuckle), and mixups like overheads. For this reason, DI will always have a use, even if it proves easy to react to all other cases, which means you'll never be able to stop thinking about it even if both players are high skill. This is expected; despite DI having many counters, the move is good and it will hit people, and that's totally fine.
DI's other objective is to add mental stress to the defender, and I think this is a super important part of SF6's design in order to not make footsies and space control overly easy. DI lunges incredibly far forward and is relatively fast, which means you can't sit there thinking you're safe to most threats while you're sticking out strong pokes.
I dislike when fighting game players think they deserve to own a space on screen and not be threatened, and they want the game to devolve into whiff punishing low forward with sweep, as if it's some "pure" form of the genre. This is nonsense; the best fighting games force you to be nervous about pretty much every space on the screen, and DI helps accomplish that. If you want to control that space, earn it by thinking about the threat of DI and proving you can control your footsies well enough to react to it or block it.
This is why DI shouldn't be more expensive than 1 bar, or substantially slower than it is, or be less than 2 hits of armor (necessary to stop 2 hit overheads and normal into special cancels). It would lose the potency necessary to keep the defense constantly worried about it, because nobody would use it outside of reacting to very specific moves in those cases. DI's speed of 26 frames, coupled with the slowdown when the armor absorbs a move, also seems well-chosen to roughly match the speed of a jump. For example, armoring through a fireball can't be done on reaction, it must be done on prediction, and the timing lines up very close to when a jump would succeed or fail. Slowing down DI would mess with this carefully tuned system in a bad way.
DI leading to a wall splat on block (and combo) in the corner is also pretty fun. It obviously will make both players think about DI more, which means the offense not using DI nearly as much will allow for stronger corner control as they get away with stuff while the defender is overloaded. And even though being splatted while in burnout leads to a stun combo and big damage, there is always an answer for the defender (reaction super, for instance). It's a much harder reaction, but that's the penalty you pay for being burned out. Someone will survive corner burnout with a clutch level 3 in the two frames between st.HP and drive impact in top 8 of some tournament, and people will love it.
One possible criticism of DI is that it will be a noob killer, and I can see some people being frustrated by it. But consider this: when beginners are flustered, they default to two main things, jumping and duplicating the move that is beating them. They will quickly learn that both of these beat DI and I think that, not only will it prevent them from being overwhelmed, it will actually help them begin to apply some basic strategy and play "smartly".
The fact that DI acts as a 1-button, no-quarter circle "fun move" that counters itself will give beginners the tool they need to unlock the fun of the game quickly, and it does this without giving them a tool they'll be able to beat strong players with. And the fact that they did a great job with the visuals of the move, a huge visceral explosion and possible slow-motion effect (it reminds me a lot of Killer Instinct's counter breaker), really helps sell the wow factor to new players. If they're going to try and find a fun move to spam, it might as well be a well-tuned game mechanic that leads to fireworks, rather than a sweep.
In short, even though there are some people who complain that the move is silly, I don't think they should change Drive Impact for launch. In fact, I'd go even further and say the system is actually quite smart and well-tuned in its current form. It's inexpensive and fast, but situational, easily countered (even on accident by beginners), rewards good reaction and awareness, and does a great job at forcing extra mental pressure on opponents which opens up other avenues of attack.