Standard blocking is too highly rewarded for its ease of use.

As players get better at teching guard breaks the power of turtling really starts to shine and creates a boring game environment. At the moment blocking an attack negates all damage of that attack and drains your opponents stamina while having no drawbacks to the person blocking.

I know this may not classify as a fighting game but it definitely shares similarities with the genre and a form of chip damage and or stamina damage upon blocking an attack would help make going on the offensive actually appealing. Adding chip damage would also cause players to go for riskier parries over standard blocking to reduce taking that chip damage while also gaining frame advantage, this would reward players who have become good with parrying while also making feinting to bait out parries more viable.