In Strive, it looks like these characters are kind of loosening up given the Stage Transitions. But I have a question, can Guilty Gear characters like Sol, Ramlethal, Nagoriyuki, and Potemkin manage to avoid collateral damage? Second, are the people even aware of two superpowered people duking it out in plain sight, who are likely powerful enough to destroy entire city or worse a planet?
Hahaha! I'm pretty sure this young lady noticed:
In terms of Stage Transitions (they're officially called "Area Shift" in in-game terms), they are pretty loose mechanically about achieving it. Even OTGs (off the ground hits) and small Jabs can achieve it.
However, based on my own experience, Area Shifts aren't that easy to get unless:
1: You Spend meter for an overdrive and it lands. 2: The opponent is in the corner for a VERY long time. 3: It depends on the damage-scaling of the combo you're doing/how many times they hit the wall.
There's also a new hit effect that will either slightly launch a character off the ground (gut blow), or send them bouncing backwards (similar to skids in the older games), the latter has a tendency to generate the "wall stick" status if other conditions have been met.
Training Mode also had a setting where Corners would "rapidly regenerate" (meaning you had to do an extended corner combo or one of significant damage/meter use to achieve Area Shift).
Lastly, in terms of "collateral damage", while I want to say it's something they're insured for, that's... not... always the case.
This is part of the reason Slayer stated he wants to fight Sol in a 12,000 Kilometer area of deserted space, so as NOT to cause that much damage to anything significant.
Obviously, Kings and Royalty can pay for damages out of their own pockets, and even Bounty Hunters could pay for their own damages as part of the hazards of working, and Soldiers like Potemkin have their own pensions/stipends, but someone like Ramlethal is probably an insurance "risk".
And yes, while their fighting might be considered "act of god" levels of damage, I don't think they haven't already thought of that. Even Sol said his weapon had the power to obliterate a mountain in a single shot.
Of course, Magic Barriers can probably protect the most important stuff, and given how powerful Magic IS in society, it's a given the International Police would be aware of peoples' misuse of it.
It's more accurate to say that society isn't all that "concerned" when two superpowered people duke it out, because it happens more often in that era anyway, since Magic powered beings are common, and using Magic to fix whatever gets broken is just as easily done.
Granted, city-wide destruction is a bad thing, which is why certain types of Gears were Megadeth classification. It helps to have barriers around important sites, too, or to form a barrier around an area prior to a major skirmish.
As a general rule in professional Bounty Hunting, if someone like Sol got caught up in a fight in a heavily populated area, his first priority would be to knock his target in to someplace that wasn’t as crowded or a back-alley street.
