5
Bush Hopper, on 29 May 2017 - 11:24 AM, said:
It is not cherrypicking. I think it is ok that there are variations within a weight class, e.g. a heavy behaves like a medium. However, when a heavy outperforms quite a few lights in the agility department, then something is really wrong - after all the difference is 30t and 2 weight classes. And that's just one (granted, an extreme) example
I take the disparity as PGI's attempts to balance within classes before trying to adjust class balance itself. Every class has outliers that have high agility stats, the chassis with the best hardpoints and geometry generally having the worst. Though I have to note, saying specific heavies outperform lights is a stretch.
Their stats, even at worst, are comparable. They're not leaps and bounds different. Sometimes it's only a difference in one category, such as deceleration. Technically better on paper, yes, though only marginally so.
Given we're talking about Quickdraws and Dragons here I'm having a hard time being outraged. It's not the Timber Wolf. It's not the Ebon Jag or the Hellbringer or any of the other high performers. In fact if you compare those machines with the FS9 or the PNT, things look just fine. The outliers are two of the chassis that have historically needed a huge amount of help to be viable. Maybe it'll get rolled back after they collect enough post-patch performance data, just like the Dragon 1N's AC-5 quirks. That made it popular for a time, but since they nerfed it when was the last time anyone saw one?
A Dragon isn't going to be able to do what a Firestarter does because it has a good agility number. It's huge, can't jump and can't boat energy. A Quickdraw can jump and boat energy, but the one that does have 6 energy slots is actually inferior to the others agility-wise and has notoriously huge hitboxes. Neither of them are as fast or will survive as long as a light with an XL engine. They need that agility to survive against others of similar weight, particularly if they're running STD engines.
That actually seems balanced to me. People are freaking out a bit too much. There was never a hard and fast rule that said that sort of thing was impossible. A Quickdraw in tabletop could outmaneuver a Panther in every category hands-down. That doesn't mean it should, but it also is an example that shows that there are situations where that sort of thing happens.
