Bud Crue, on 31 December 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:
Maybe for the comp teams it was a staple, but looking at from the perspective of the rest of us...at least reflected in these forums...the Quickdraw was ridiculed (for the most part) pretty consistently both before and after the introduction of quirks. I rarely if ever saw it in pugs and even less so in CW. Its only since the most recent nerf/buff pass that I have been seeing consistent commentary about how great they are; and spotting them more frequently in matches.
But since you bring it up... what is it that makes it a staple to the comp teams vs say a thunderbolt vs a grasshopper, etc.? Is it really just the quirks? Lots of mechs have quirks. Do the historically (for about the last year) great quirks of the Quickdraw vs its large profile (the most common complaint) really warrant it as a T1 metamech? Do those quirks (and presumably its high mounts) really set it above and beyond most (if not all) other mechs?! Some of us were wondering about this on a different thread. I am sincerely interested in how a competitive player views this.
Without spending too much time... usually if you look @ the quirks on a "spreadsheet level", it is actually easy to identify (assuming some people play their own game) which mechs are underquirked or overquirked based on mutually notable characteristics.
If you see a certain PPC mech, is it because it has great heat quirks, great velocity, or some combination of both? To know what mechs are used, you simply have to see what its deficiencies are and see if the quirks help or mitigate it. It could be argued with the current set of quirks that the BJ-3 is the best PPC mech in the game. I'm not totally sure of that, but it's certainly a top tier one for that purpose.
In the case of Quickdraw... particularly the Quickdraw-5K, it's always been a plus to have torso mounted weapons... and the arms have always been capable shields, so for the average player that had dealt with it when it had no quirks... it would be "too hard" aka not easy mode and also "required effort"... the things a better player can do stuff with it.
It's not appreciable for those who don't "try to get better" by intentionally handicapping themselves... learn to play an "OK" chassis at best AND then translate this back to more optimal chassis that fit their playstyle.
Then again, these things don't really translate to chassis like the Vindicator (it's a PPC mech, but the deficiencies sorely outweigh many of the quirks/benefits).
Votanin FleshRender, on 31 December 2015 - 01:39 PM, said:
I feel the same way about Thunderbolts. One of my favorite mechs in tabletop back in the 80's, and when they gave one out in a challenge a year and half ago I bought them all, and KEPT PLAYING THEM after mastering them long before quirks made them cool. Never saw anyone else piloting them until suddenly everyone was.
Thunderbolts were solid (I got them when they came out on the first day, including the 9S that was released later in the game's lifetime). The thing was that compared to a lot of mechs BEFORE quirks was it was rather meddling. Other mechs could more or less do its job (Cataphract was the mech in the heyday). After quirks and other meta-related changes (particularly Hoverjets™), it became the goto mech staple for the IS because everything else DUE TO QUIRKS were practically garbage.
A lot of meta-choices are all RELATIVE to changes made... and it's not a coincidence that some mechs get played over others (and that's besides the obvious limited choices that Clans have for their dropdecks).
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