DaZur, on 20 August 2014 - 04:48 AM, said:
Ya'know... I'm not entirely sure I'm able to follow the grousing over marginal mech designs.
Absolutely... For high-level competitive players who make a living of squeezing max-meta out of these mechs, I understand and appreciate your myopic viewpoint. But for the larger majority of us... It seems trite.
Begrudging a Honda Civic because it's not a Porsche is a futile endeavor... It's not supposed to be. Yet the Civic is one of the most well sold vehicles in the US right now. Point is, There's a market for these marginal mechs...
I dunno... The battlescape to me would be a boring deluge of high-meta mechs without these margical mech offerings and I think the pervasive belaboring of "Well, it not as good a "X" mech and is definitely not meta material" to be closed minded.
You ask me, this eternal want for only apex mechs to me is boring and limits the scope of diversity...
Whilst I like your overall analogy, the thing is, there are things the civic does that the Porsche does not. Like be cheap and get great gas mileage. It has a "ROLE" besides just cost of entry.
These mechs need their roles. ATM, all we have is TDM. And so all are judged by how well they kill, while avoiding getting killed in return. That limits things, but even in that, we can have quirks, and hitbox and agility differences to separate units, and keep them all viable, if not optimal, and allow them all to compete to some degree.
Look to the Griffin and Shadowhawk. Similar size, same speed, armor, etc. Shadowhawk has better (slightly) hitboxes and hardpoints. Griffin has FAR better agility and JJs. Not quite enough to allow the Griffin to equal the SHD in a straight toe to toe fight, but enough to give it it's own niche and be useful and effective at it.
So, the VND does not have to be as good as the SHD. But the fact that it's slower, lighter armed and armored, worse hitboxes, worse jump and agility makes it a direct downgrade, and not even a close one, in all ways, to the Griffin. Without artificial weight limitations, there is never a reason to take it instead of a Griffin, and TBH, if it's not worth the 10 tons savings on a drop deck, you are still handicapping your team using it over ANY available Medium option. It's like Bringing a Locust in place of a Spider. Just make no sense to do.
To me, that is a problem. There were a lot of things they could have done with the mechanics to avoid this (Armor caps, hard point sizes, etc).....but those ships sailed long ago.