First I'd like to say that I'm misusing the term "EX Special" from Street Fighter because I'm not aware of any terminology to describe this idea. EX Specials cost a bar of meter for an even more powerful version of the attack, so in a way it fits.
So imagine if the game had a kill-confirm detection system specifically for kill-confirms using Level 1 Supers, and would rate them on a 1/9 scale based on how much AP was netted while using them before activating the Level 1 (more on that later).
Imagine then that whenever the system detects a Level 1 kill-confirm being used, the user would be penalized by having to spend up to twice the required amount of AP for that Level 1 Super (i.e. 300 AP required for a 150 AP Super, 250 for 125 Super and 200 for 100 Super).
However, it would be possible to decrease this penalty by a specific amount for every single unit of AP the user is able to gain before activation, meaning the penalty becomes smaller if the Super is activated after an extended combo.
The penalty decrease-rate would look like this:
150 AP-Cost Super: The penalty lowers by 3 for every AP unit gained (this applies to most of the roster)
125 AP-Cost Super: Penalty-decrease of 2.5 (this applies to Parappa, Sir Dan, Spike and both Coles)
100 AP-Cost Super: Penalty-dcrease of 2 (applies to Sweet Tooth, Big Daddy and Heihachi)
Essentially, if the kill-confirm user reaches a 99 AP combo (just short of breaking through the AP-Burst system), they can potentially dispel the penalty for using a kill-confirm entirely (as you can imagine, it would be virtually impossible to fully eliminate the penalty in this manner). Further more, the AP netted in the actual combo would stabalize to the normal cost for the Super after using a 50 AP combo, meaning anything after that would become a bonus. Also note that this penalty-lowering only counts for the opponent the Super is eventually used on: anyone else you hit or any other AP you gain during the combo won't count towards the decrease; in turn, if you catch multiple opponents in your eventual Super, the game counts the second kill as a raw Super without any penalty.
Finally, for every group of 10 AP gained during the course of this kill-confirming combo, the detection system would drive the rating up by 1 point to a possible 9/9 rating (aka 90 AP combo). The point of getting this rating higher would be to slightly raise the overall speed of activation and movement of the Super at a (nearly) exponential rate. In other words, it becomes an EX Super divided by 9 ratings.
The EX Super Rating-System would look like this:
1/9 EX Super: After performing a Kill-Confirm combo over 10 AP, the lowest possible rating, the super becomes faster by 1/20 (not much of a noticeable increase).
2/9 EX Super: The Super becomes faster by 2/20
3/9 EX Super: Faster by 3/20
4/9 EX Super: Faster by 4/20
5/9 EX Super: Faster by 5/20
6/9 EX Super: Faster by 6/20
7/9 EX Super: Faster by 8/20
8/9 EX Super: Faster by a quarter of its usual speed
Perfect Rating EX Super: Faster by 15/20 (nearly twice as fast)
We don't have to just go with a speed-increase either. You could give the Super a wider hit-box or maybe a bigger explosion if that's that's how they work; let it vary by Super.
So as an example, using Sir Dan's Magic Bow at point-black to stun an opponent before using his Level 1 (which normally costs 125) would net him 5 AP, and thus he'd have to pay nearly the full penalty (237.5 AP) while gaining no speed-increase whatsoever. Using Sly's Alarm Clock into his Level 1 (which normally costs 150 AP) would gain him 10 AP and thus cost him 270 AP to use. Were Sweet Tooth to short hop, using his aerial Machete Slash and tto kill-confirm into his Level 1 (cost of 100) would gain him 20 AP and thus cost him 160 AP to use.
Having faster Supers could open up a whole new world of possible kill-confirms: you could potentially kill-confirm from a single ground-hit at the highest rating. Encouraging long kill-confirm combos could give us our equivalent of Tekken's 10-hit combos. Discouraging players for using simplistic kill-confirms would be welcome in my book, and having such a high barrier for their use would prevent them from being seen early in the match. It could also pin combos to ground more often since Supers can't be used in the air.
Now keep in mind that this entire idea is still in its raw form: I haven't really thought it through all that well nor have I fully considered its ramnifications. I understand it would take massive amounts of play-testing and re-balances to work, but I can see some potential for the concept.
And for those wondering, here's the tl;dr version:
Kill-confirms cost nearly twice as much AP to use
You lower this cost by using them at the end of a combo
The AP-Gain of this combo is given a rating
Getting a high rating makes your Super faster
I'm pretty tired right now so I might have left something out. I'm encouraging critisism here cause I want this idea to get fleshed out.
This would actually make Dante a decent character though, so there is that. It would break the rest of the game, but maybe this might perhaps manage to make Dante decent?
This also punishes characters with situational level 1 setups who are already low tier, like Jak, Sackboy and BD, who's best chance of landing a super is with their extremely situational confirms (In BD's and case anyway. Jak at least has some invincibility on his and Sackboy can combo from shockpad). Oh and how does it work with BD's thrw confirm considering he throws the super out THEN throws you into it? Is this a confirm or no? Would this retroactively cost more meter? Since I technically didn't combo anything, will it cost as much as my level 2 for no goddamn reason?
You know, at this point what you're suggesting is just "Let's remove kill confirms unless you're already a broken character (Or Dante for some reason), in which case let's buff them!".
