It's pretty dumb to call it barebones now. You were right about certain balancing issues, plus online still isn't fixed, but come on now. If you have the game you know it's more than complete now. I'd say it was complete by the second month or two. It's a fighting game, so I'm not really sure what all you expected mode wise.
Arcade mode for one. That's like an absolutely basic and barebones mode and they still don't have that? Why? It helps these games sell when they at least try to have some sort of offline content for players to have fun with (not that it would even be considered offline content at this point considering you need to be online to download it). Hell that's why the Netherrealm games absolutely dominate sales wise and don't even need to worry about the competitive community.
I thought that was meant to come within like 6 months of release anyway? Wtf happened. This game is close to being a year and a half old now.
You don't seem to know what barebones means. A game lacking one mode while replacing it with several others does not make it "barebones" or "incomplete." That logic makes absolutely no sense. It's like saying a full time student isn't a full time student anymore because he's taking different classes. Uh, no, the number of course dictates the status, not the specific courses being taken. SFV is most definitely a complete game by now no questions asked.
As for the community aspect, different strokes different folks. I definitely think IJ2 is much better game, but I'd rather have a game with a constant stream of updates and a consistent competitive community than be like MKX where the online dies down a lot just a few months after release and the competitive community is nigh nonexistent.
The main barrier now with SFV and casuals is the stigma of the initial release which most casuals don't even know enough about to get over.
casuals dont play SFV for the reasons they do play injustice
tons of single player+unlockable content
guess what sfv has practically 0 of?
no arcade mode and no singleplayer content other than a memeworthy story mode
unlike SF4, the only thing keeping SFV afloat is CPT money ---
