Hitbox vs manuverabilty a study in design...esfs

How is it possible the devs designed the esfs in such a counter intuative way? If i said to someone (as a aircraft engineer) were going to make a big fighter that is also not very manuverable i would be out of a job. If i said i will make a small fighter and make it very manuverable, i would get a raise. But here we have the exact situation played out every day in ps2 and the development team seem oblivious to this design problem they created.
How in heck did the reaver get through design testing, biggest hitbox (by a large margin), tied for slowest speed, and ohh just to add insult to injury it also has the worst manuverability.
This is like a oxymoron of design philosophy.
Contrast that with a scythe, smallest hitbox (40% smaller or more from different sides), same base speed yet much more manuverable. The traits should be the exact opposite of the actual reality.
It just boggles my mind that this stuff still goes on with no fixes in sight.
The reaver should have 30 to 40% more hitpoints then the other esfs to compensate but it doesnt, it has the exact same hitpoints/armor also.
Seriously how can any player look at this situation and not say to themselves, thats not balanced.
Get your stuff together design team, think about this for one minute or less and fix the reaver.

Reaver is the fastest and the most maneuverable.

Tongue in cheek, but I'm serious.
As many bad NC pilots as there are, and the whole "NC Pilots" being a joke in of itself, the best pilots I've ever seen are also NC.

The Reaver, while hard to use, has the highest potential of all the aircraft. The Scythe, while the easiest to fly, has the lowest. It's pretty unfair.
Which generally, I think is great design. The most powerful things should be hard to use. Easier things should be weaker. Though, it's bad when your faction ONLY has the easy to use weaker option, or the harder to use stronger one. Since most players are bad, the easier to use one appears the most powerful.

Reaver does NOT have the highest potential with the current state of inertia. The limiting factor of the skill ceiling is game mechanics/physics not the "theoritical potential" based on design ideas.

I do like the Ideas behind the balance of the designs of each ESF.

QFT.

Whilst I agree with the OP, I would like to get in immediately and state that if the 'fix' to this imbalance is to buff the reaver's health, I will leave the game, as will a huge number of people who are currently on the fence about staying and awaiting the 'magic fix'...

Health is not a useful component in nearly as much a way as manoeuverability. 80% of the time if he's getting the drop on you (the main situation any worthwhile pilot will lose his ship), a health boost does not help. The ability to airstall, fly upside down (or any angle) without loss of altitude, turn on a dime, and have a tiny hitbox are all things that MIGHT help you. 30% health boost is not. I would go as far as to say 100% would not address the issue.

A better fix would be to buff damage such that our racial is in some way appropriate (and fix the ridiculous auto-convergence, else this is only a fix for that issue), and fix inertia such that we can use our afterburners to our advantage, and have other flight manoeuvers like drops to pick up speed etc.




Also, again, just to highlight in the hope SOMEONE reads these threads, the recent patch to Reaver has bugged the only viable airframe. Or rather, left it bugged. Racer 3 does NOT get the same bonus to inertia and afterburner as any other airframe does. This is pure insanity. Currently, my afterburners make me go FASTER and FOR LONGER if I don't equip an airframe at all.

AND the bug where the airframe permanently switches itself off STILL exists, despite having been a bug pointed out in the TECH TEST!!!!

That being said, I like the default Reaver.. it hits really hard, even with just the default gun.

I dunno, I've tried all 3 ESFs... they're all fine, they have differences but that's cool.
No tears shed from me.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Scythe rocket pods are the worst in every way except that their starting location is predictable. I don't feel like repeating what I said earlier, just look at the stats yourself.

It's also cute how that picture leaves out the top angles and the distance from the player isn't the same in each shot. What do they call those, "propoganda diagrams"?

Also add the fact, landing gear is DOWN, and wings are VTOL position. PLUS, no top, or angle pics. Total BS in those pics.

How much have you flown? I've put 400+ hours flying already in PS2 alone. The ESF's are no where near balanced. The Scythe's design alone gives it so much advantage. I'll gladly transfer over to VS to fly the OP as hell Scythe.

Haha oh god yeah, that too. Not having landing gear makes for less px there.

Man, that picture makes me want to puke.

There is a better one that uses the models extracted from the .pack files, with the scaling that the game uses. Its numbers are far different than that propaganda diagram.

And as someone who kills nearly as many pilots as he kills infantry, I can without a doubt say that Mosquitos are 5x harder to hit than Scythes.

A lot.
Not that I need to, look at my signature. Notice that I kill at least 3 times more Scythes than Mosquitos. I have so many near misses against Mosquitos because they're smaller and they're so twitchy. Scythes are stable and predictable, if you can't hit them you need to rethink how you're aiming.
And you're speaking as someone who purely flies the Mosquito, which if anything is the one that needs to be made larger.

Why, exactly, don't you make a VS? You can have 3 characters. Go fly the Scythe. The Scythe is easier to use, but it's extremely worse at the higher skill cap where you're good enough to make use of inertia, can reverse, etc.

I think Reaver should get like 20% more hit points to compensate for bad hit box

Maybe fly a Scythe for a bit. I'd almost take a Scythe with 0 certs and their pods over mine with 12k+ certs invested.

Lies. Total BS. Those weak pics are totally misleading. I assume you have those to give yourself an excuse when you get shot down?

Please, stop spreading this propaganda.

I have flown all of them. I have played against all of them in every situation, not just as another aircraft. Though my Reaver is the least upgraded, I know the potential of them.

You also say things like "Scythe landing gear is overpowered", when Scythes die all the time from impacting the ground too hard, while Reavers and Mosquitos are immune to such damage. You're really bias. Go make a VS. You're already BR 97 on your TR. I don't know why you're making excuses saying you'd trade for a 0cert Scythe, when you can go play such a thing right now.

My Vanu is on Jaeger.

This really has nothing to do with well how well I do or not. It's just looking at the facts. Keep up with the weak excuses.

The people doubting any of the facts needs to do some research, the hitboxes have been analyzed multiple times on reddit and in the vehicle forums here, even from the top the reaver is much bigger then the scythe and the reaver "potential for performance" was destroyed when they nerfed inertia.
Get your facts straight before deciding to post, the reaver is much bigger, slower and less manuverable in the games current state which is rediculous.
Vaxx you need to just stop already, you look silly you havent done any research and none of this is propaganda its fact. Proven by more than 10 threads on esf hitboxes with hard data bro

Your "facts" are wrong. Try again.

Why are you speaking about "facts" and posting a picture that doesn't include the top area, shows them at different distances, and is counting their landing gear for their size?

Okay, I concede, Reavers are the weakest Aircraft when they are stationary on the ground!



And this is just one factor. There are dozens of others. You think making the pixel count exactly the same from 3 angles would make them balanced?

There are so many different variables, DOZENS, and idiots like to pick out the one or two weakest for their ESF of choice and say they need to be buffed.

Now bug fixes, sure. There are apparently some bugs with the Reaver that need fixed. But it's design is pretty great, and it has a super high potential. I've seen insanely talented pilots doing insane things with their burner and air hammer.

How did you arrive at this conclusion?

The art of being contrary for the sake of it?

You do know they disabled gravity effects right?

The point of an aircraft being built such as the Reaver would be armor and load out. It should be housing a bigger engine, it should have thicker plates, and it should have more hard points. It's obviously a ground attack vehicle design, and it looks a lot like an Apache. Therefore it should carry 50% more rounds and be able to take 40% more hits, or some value thereof.

As it stands in game, the fact is I can lead Reavers much more easily then I can the other two aircraft. They don't turn as tight so I can stay on target better, they are slow so I get more shots out on the target, and they have more area to be hit meaning I miss less.

It goes 370km/h with afterburner, compared to the 350km/h of the scythe, while it's not AB speed is faster, no?

And it's "more manuverable" because it's better able to turn while keeping its nose to its target due to its inertia and "drifting". The Scythe has almost no inertia, and moves in the direction it's pointing. This is actually a disadvantage in dogfights. Reversing is harder in the Scythe, and doesn't work nearly as well.
If there are some bugs with its losing its extra inertia with airframe upgrades, that needs fixed. That's just a bug.

The whole more hitpoints thing is laughable as well. Why should other ESF die to one HA rocket but not the Reaver? That's so imbalanced.

As far as I've seen, all the best pilots in this game flies a Reaver. They're just better and know how to exploit its strengths, while others are whining about its weakenesses.
There are reasons that my main is Vanu, yet whenever I feel like getting in a tank I log off it. I know things that the people who cry that the Vanguard is weak don't.


Also, have you ever gotten into a Scythe, then immediately held space? How about on the Reaver? The Reaver raises up 30m in like 2 seconds. The Scythe goes up 10m in the same time. Everything in the Scythe is so laggy, and it's ascend is so weak.

Sure the Reaver is a bit easier to hit, but it doesn't have to worry about being shot but the Vanguards main cannon. Only the Magrider AP can one-shot it, and that gun doesn't aim up high enough, and the Air-hammer drops Mags so fast anyway.

There are so many factors you're forgetting besides "hur dur size" and "esf vs esf only comparisons plz unit in dis game"