Right now, doing a jab chain into hard attacks isn't a true combo. It does feel a bit odd at the moment; airdash jump-ins are the best combo starters for that reason. The game has its own identity for sure, but I do miss the old combos as well. Hopefully they can find a compromise, as most of the current attacks don't link into each other aside from heavies into specials. The game does play like a fighting game, and that makes it unique, but sometimes it feels like it's missing the satisfying combos that most modern games in the genre have. Allowing more of the current moves to chain into each other and reducing how fast the gravity/combo protection kicks in would be an easy way to fix that. These changes could be invalid in versus mode if the developers desire.

Hi Brudda. I totally get where you're coming from. We've done away with the previous 'same button x4' combo mechanic in favor of something that lends itself for players to utilize each character's total moveset. But the combo system is still robust and quite open-ended, by using a type of attack called the Chain Move. Chain Moves allow for players to create different types of unique combos.
A Chain Move is a versatile attack that links combos together. You cancel from any cancellable attack into a Chain Move. A Chain Move can also be cancelled into an Ability or Super. We'll be going through the details of all of the game's mechanics in an upcoming Tutorial Mode that we're working on currently. But for now, here's a quick explanation on Chain Moves:

A typical combo with a Chain Move looks something like this:
cancellable attack -> Chain Move -> any Ability or Super

For an actual example:
(Earle) standing.Hard -> forward + Light (Chain Move) -> up + Ability.

Each character has a Chain Move, and it's notation is different for each character. Do have a look at the Command List to see which move is your character's Chain Move. You can also check how each move works for every character. Hope this helps! :D